Their income would be high enough not to benefit from that safety net anyway. You would end up paying the same.

If the parent comment meant universal healthcare, you'd absolutely see the lack of health insurance premiums reflected in prices. As a contractor, it's definitely a chunk of my rate.

But universal healthcare is paid for by taxes on people who earn good money, which these people do. The costs being thrown around in this thread are about on par with the UK anyway.

I explained that in my post. The point is to distribute and dilute these costs consistently over time and across the population.

You miss the point. Universal payer is not the utopia you think it is. People at the bottom may pay less, but people at the top pay more, "distributing and diluting these costs". That results in relatively well earning professions paying high company and income taxes, resulting in identical fees for fitting a socket in the UK (a universal payer society) as the US (a look after yourself society). Ergo, you've shifted the money around but fundamentally haven't changed anything, you carpenter isn't going to work for minimum wage suddenly because his tax burden won't allow it.