No. of Recommendations: 2
But would it?
Yes. By definition, if you switch to universal health care, you're going to be doing more health care. More tests, more procedures, more medications, more medical equipment - more of everything. That's the point. That's why you do it. But that means you spend more.
Say you adopt universal health care for the coming year. Next year, you will perform all the medical treatments you perform for all the people who currently can afford/have insurance for treatments. And now you will be performing all the medical treatments for the people who wouldn't have gotten those treatments, either because they lacked insurance/money or were underinsured.
That's going to cost a lot. And no, it's not going to be made up in savings by eliminating private insurance costs. Those costs are large in the absolute sense (tens of billions) but miniscule compared to the cost of providing health care for another 10%+ of the population (hundreds of billions).
Could we cut prices if we give the government the power to do so? It's theoretically possible, but it's not going to happen. Government insurance doesn't spend less on health care than private insurance. Maybe even worse. We pay double the amount per capita for treating our seniors than any other country, just like we do for people who are not in Medicare. Government doesn't squeeze medical providers, because 10% of workers (and probably a larger percentage of actual voters) work in the health care industry. The "doc fix" will always get passed, the reimbursement rates will always stay high, and the medical industry (not just the nasty health insurance or pharmaceutical folks but the entire medical industry) will protect their rice bowl.
