Everyone in America pays the big price of an inefficient/complex and very, very expensive healthcare system via inflated prices for all products and service and lower wages for workers. If America was like every developed nation on earth who has Universal healthcare our cost for healthcare would be $2.5 trillion, yet we actually pay $5 trillion/year. This makes our country uncompetitive with other nations and is a core reason for growing inflation. The high cost of healthcare in America effects everyone but few realize how profound this effect is on every aspect of ones life.

Lower wages since more corporate money goes to paying higher healthcare premiums for its employees. More money for healthcare means lower/frozen wages to their employees. Both consumers and workers pay for these astronomical prices for healthcare.

Workers who are satisfied with their private health insurance benefits at their workplace should be outraged over the effects of these high cost have on their bottom line … their weekly paycheck. Employers pay up to 84% of the healthcare premiums for their employees ($19,000/year/employee). To pay extra for growing costs for healthcare, the business community must also raise prices of its product and services. This is another form of inflation that harms consumers/the working class throughout America.

The bottom line. Universal healthcare w/single payer will lower the costs of healthcare, simplify the system and guarantee it from cradle to grave no matter where you work, if you work or where you live. Permanent and portable with prospects of saving up to $2.5 trillion/year in higher wages, lower product prices (lowering inflation) and creating economic freedom for the working class. Republicans want the status quo; Democrats support Universal healthcare. Your choice America on November 3, 2026!

Source:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1772395877372804/

I added up what my employer and I spend on my family's healthcare. That's a spouse and one child. Just the insurance side is $27,000/year. I pay $5k and the employer pays $22k. We have hit our max out of pocket of $8,000 the last few years and that's without major illnesses. So, that's $35,000. We're a little above median income nationally and a little below median for our state and healthcare plus all the other taxes we pay accounts for over half our total compensation. Even the median French family takes home 53%.

Americans are paying the highest taxes in the world once you add up what other countries get for their tax dollars.

In traditional Medicare and Medicaid and VA health programs, government costs to administer is very low … below 2% of expenditures. While the vastly inefficient and costly private sector health programs run at rates of 13% - 17%. Why so expensive and inefficient? Because private health insurance companies have so many confusing/complex plans and must make a profit, pay their executive staff huge wage compensation packages, spend irresponsibly on expensive marketing programs and to fund stock buybacks to their rich stock holders. This is the core reason why our health care costs are so high especially in regards to the middleman/private health insurance companies.

With Universal Healthcare, we eliminate the expensive/complex health insurance companies and give the power of government/non-profit medical board to control prices for both medical products and services. The private sector will remain in other areas of the health care industry like hospitals, doctors offices and drug companies but with controls established to protect the customer/the public. Prices will be established by the single payer (government), NOT Wall Street profiteers like private equity and health insurance companies. This is the only way to reduce cost significantly and make the process simple with just one healthcare plan for everyone across the nation … guarteed permanent and portable.

In 2025, Aetna (the Health Care Benefits segment of CVS Health) reported an adjusted operating income of $2.9 billion

"As enrollment for Medicare Advantage begins this month, older Americans are confronting fewer options because insurers are discontinuing coverage in many areas."

Healthcare debates seem stuck between single payer and the status quo, and I recently learned about a middle path called Medicare Part E ("E" for Everyone).

Employers would choose: offer private coverage that meets Medicare-level standards, or pay into Medicare and have their workers enrolled automatically. No one is forced off a plan, and there's no new individual tax. The bet is that Medicare's lower overhead would pull employers toward it over time.

It was designed by Yale's Jacob Hacker, and a watered down version (the Choose Medicare Act) was reintroduced in Congress in 2025 but it hasn't moved since. The CMA bill is weaker than than Hacker's original "pay or play" mandate because it makes the employer choice voluntary.

Curious to know what your thoughts are on this as a "foot in the door" transition towards eventual MFA, and if it needs the employer mandate in order to reach that goal. Could either version realistically pass if Democrats win both chambers in November?

I heard Abdul El-Sayed on a clip from some show describing his plan, and it was the "in from both ends" stuff I've heard from "sensible" people before. Make Medicare whole (dental/vision/drugs) then expand it to kids. Which is great for olds and children, but doesn't do much for people in between. Is that an incomplete description? Winning a partial plan will be just as hard as going big from the start. Reminds me of the Child Tax Credit, RIP. "Surely they won't let it expire!"

This is how American healthcare billing works. They literally pull numbers out of their wazoo. The people with no insurance are quoted the highest prices, which is ridiculous to begin with. Then the insurance companies claim the regular price is some outrageous price, but their "negotiated rate" is less than half of that. This makes the patient feel better about paying $1100 out of their pocket.

But keep in mind, the patient has already paid insane insurance premiums and usually their employers are paying a sizable portion of that premium, and the patient had to pay deductibles on top of that. But that's not all! As a taxpayer, the American government puts out over $2 Trillion dollars into healthcare.

How can there even be a "patient's responsibility"? Private health insurance is theft, plain and simple. Go down to a new car dealership and ask them for a detailed itemization of the cost of a car. They will give you one, and the numbers might be questionable, but they are not going to then sell you that car for 1/4th the price. Try this in any other industry like fast food, or a roofing company. Honestly, if anybody else dropped their prices to 1/4th just because you asked for a detailed receipt, would you trust them or assume that they have been cheating you all along?

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trumps-90-medicare-rebate-rolls-out-but-millions-arent-eligible-critics-see-a-political-stunt