‘Single Payer’ and the Economy
Posted by MEC on June 3, 2009
The California Nurses Association commissioned a study by the Institute for Health & Socioeconomic Policy, a nonpartisan nonprofit policy and research group, on the economic impact of instituting a “Single Payer” healthcare system in the United States. (A PDF file of the report is here.)
The conclusion:
Expanding Medicare to include the uninsured, and these on Medicaid or employer-sponsored health plans, and expanding coverage for those with limited Medicare, would have the following immediate impacts:
- Create 2,613,495 million new permanent good-paying jobs (slightly exceeding the number of jobs lost in 2008)
- Boost the economy with $317 billion in increased business and public revenues
- Add $100 billion in employee compensation
- Infuse public budgets with $44 billion in new tax revenues
[…]
Adding all Americans to an expanded Medicare could be achieved for $63 billion beyond the current $2.1 trillion in direct healthcare spending. The $63 billion is six times less than the federal bailout for CitiGroup, and less than half the federal bailout for AIG. Solely expanding Medicare to cover the 47 million uninsured Americans (as of 2006 data on which the study is based) could be accomplished for $44 billion.
Anyone who is concerned about our future economic health, not just the profits of the insurance industry, should be promoting Single Payer.
10 Responses to “‘Single Payer’ and the Economy”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Mercury Rising 鳯女 
Flee said
I promote the single payer system to everyone and anyone. I feel if all the auto workers can find new jobs so can all those insurance executives! Health care should not be a for profit business, people should not be bonusing for denying people care. If you took all we pay for insurance and medicade taxes and reallocated it just to health care, not lobbying, executive bonuses, and viagra commercials, we could pay for health care now. I do not want affordable health care, I want a single payer, universal health care system, for everyone!
Charles II said
Part of me agrees with you that we should just tell the insurance industry to go f–k itself, Flee.
Then I remember that 17 cents of every dollar goes through the medical system, probably 2/3 of it through the insurance system. It’s a big step to nationalize something that big.
But, yeah, over time, it has to be done. They’re driving the nation broke.
MEC said
I always think of the employees. The CEO deserve to be dumped unceremoniously. The workerbees don’t deserve to be unemployed and, in this economy, unemployable.
Flee said
I’m sorry, the auto workers in my state have been outsorced out of their jobs for decades now. They have had to start over and if they can do it so can the insurace sector. With the jobs the study proposed it would seem they will have an easier time at it then the auto workers have had.
Charles II said
It’s true that they could find new jobs, Flee. But when economic upheavals that big occur, there are ripple effects that are difficult to anticipate. A change this large probably does need to happen over time.
Think about what would have happened to Michigan if all those layoffs had happened in just one year, instead of over the space of 30 years.
Stormcrow said
Damn right there are.
Laid off auto workers aren’t going to patronize restaurants very much at all.
Purchase of durable goods by those newly unemployed is going to be sidelined or foregone altogether.
Generally speaking, the entire local economy is going to take a hit. Bottom line is that large numbers of secondary businesses are going to go bust. And feeders of those businesses take their own hits in turn.
I’ve been watching the ripples of the RE / banking industry collapse spread here in Metro Seattle over the last two years, and it hasn’t been pretty.
MEC said
If the auto workers in your state have been “outsourced for decades”, the state has had decades to develop other jobs. And I’m going to make a wild guess that those other jobs don’t provide the wages, benefits, and secure old age that the auto jobs provided.
Going from auto manufacturing or insurance to flipping hamburgers or mowing lawns is not an acceptable economic transition.
ShortWoman» Blog Archive » Bankrupt said
[…] The private health insurance system has failed. It can reinvent itself as an industry that provides supplemental coverages. This is not the time for half-baked compromises that benefit insurance companies over human beings. A true single payer system is the only way to stop medical bankruptcies, truly control costs, and move forward. It will even create jobs and boost the economy. […]
Flee said
From the study:
-Create 2,613,495 million new permanent good-paying jobs (slightly exceeding the number of jobs lost in 2008)
-Boost the economy with $317 billion in increased business and public revenues
-Add $100 billion in employee compensation
-Infuse public budgets with $44 billion in new tax revenues
There would be new jobs and new revenue created. We would be in a better place now if they had not turned health care into a for profit business.
The last 30 years have been about making the rich richer. To be competitive in the new world economy we need single payer health care. The alternative is a lower our standard of living for the former middle class.
Charles II said
I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on the narrow issue of whether we should go to single payer overnight, Flee. I do agree that we will need to do it.