A single-payer health care reform can contribute to an economic stimulus
TweetAccording to an article in The Nation, we need the right health care reform for our nation to recover economically so it can prosper. The establishment of a national single-payer style healthcare reform system that expands the existing Medicare system to cover all Americans is said to be the “right reform.” The National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association (NNOC/CNA) released a study last week that shows that if we implement this reform, it would provide a major stimulus to our economy by creating more than 2.6 million jobs and instilling $317 billion in new business and public revenues into our economy. $100 Billion in wages will be added as well to the U.S. economy.
Unemployment hit 7.2% in 2008; a 16 year high and over 2.6 million jobs were lost. The single-payer system will create the jobs we lost last year, approximately 2.6 million.
“Through direct and supplemental expenditures, healthcare is already a uniquely dominant force in the U.S. economy,” said Don DeMoro, lead author of the study and director of the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy, the NNOC/CNA research arm.
“However, so much more is possible. If we were to expand our present Medicare system to cover all Americans, the economic stimulus alone would create an immense engine that would help drive our national economy for decades to come,” DeMoro said.
Healthcare in the U.S. currently accounts for $2.1 trillion in direct expenditures. Total health care spending is nearly $6 trillion. The comprehensive plan includes attributes such as universal eligibility, regardless of age, income, pre-existing conditions, and employment status; a uniform single standard of care for all enrollees which would eliminate the existing disparities in Medicare and Medicaid; and a single payer system for both funding and administration. The entire nation will have access to the same health services, costs, administrative cost burden, and eligibility requirements.
This single payer system can make significant contributions to the access of health care for all residents of the United States as well as a substantial economic stimulus in the form of new jobs and increased wages. The total cost for this system is $63 billion, which ends up being a huge percentage less than the bailouts paid for AIG and CitiGroup.
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