I suspect that was a misstatement - I haven't seen a proposal that avoids higher taxes without a large debt being written against something else (i.e. redirecting funding from the military). It is, however, accurate to say that personal out-of-pocket expenses wouldn't increase for most individuals. The cost per patient for government funded healthcare is expected to significantly undercut private costs per patient due to some efficiencies of scale and removal of some pretty big market friction points - so less money would end up being extracted from the economy to pay for an equivalent level of care.

In short - you can buy a banana for a dime or give the government a nickle and get a "free" banana.

Medicare just forces providers to take less money than insurance companies, it's efficient in some sense, but it's not operational efficiency.

I'm super glad my mom has Medicare! But she isn't benefitting from it being efficient, she's benefitting from it setting the rate it pays and requiring providers to accept it.

To clarify a bit these market insights don't just come from comparisons to medicare but by comparing patient care costs to similarly developed nations and trying to account for factors like the obesity epidemic - the US just pays a lot more for a patient to get treatment than similar countries.

Well, if you and or your employer are not paying premiums, and the overall spend is less (this is a well supported CBO finding), most of us will be better off.

Totally agreed. Saying that most of us will be better off even though our taxes will go up is significantly more accurate.

What is a premium but a private tax?

One is an optional payment to a private company to purchase a specific service.

The other is a compulsory payment to a government entity as a result of earning income.

Lol, optional?

The rest of the developed world would very strongly disagree.

The penalty for not making that payment can be death, is likely financial ruin.

For many people, that optional payment is enough to buy a home.

Ask around about "optional"

Then we can set that aside and recognize net, liquid income will go up for most everyone.

> Do you have a specific idea in mind that I'm missing?

All in the US more or less pays roughly 2x or more what some other countries pay for equivalent healthcare, so there is nominally room to extend coverage while keeping costs flat in theory. In practice, it's complicated. Also 'roughly' and 'more or less' have some wiggle room for systemic differences, but it's about right.

You would be able to cut out an entire for profit insurance industry, I would also think people would be more inclined to go to see a doctor before a minor issue turns into a major one than they are now.