Taiwan built “Medicare for all” and gave everyone health insurance

I would support medicare for all if supporters of it could cite a single way in which it would cut prices or make healthcare more affordable.

Like obamacare, medicare for all, doesn't fix anything.

It hikes taxes and balloons the deficit. Aside from that it produces little or no tangible benefits.

This is a thoughtful, well-researched article, and I look forward to reading the rest of the series. My one criticism stems from the notion that the Taiwanese single-payer system is tantamount to "Medicare-for-all". Not only is this a gross oversimplification of both models, it requires making comparisons that just don't make sense. A more compelling argument would highlight specific attributes of the Taiwanese health system, and map those to relevant U.S. counterparts.

For example, the VA health system would be a more apt comparison if we're talking about a single-payer system operating within a common regulatory framework (all VAs are on federal property). If we're considering funding vis-à-vis taxpayer vs. employer contributions, the Taiwanese model starts to look more like Hawaii (maybe also Oregon). If we're interested in a solution that is known to scale up to 25-30 million individuals, it would be best to focus on the regulatory landscape in the state of New York. Factoring in the flexibility of higher-income individuals to purchase supplemental insurance, the Taiwanese system looks most like traditional Medicare (i.e. fee-for-service) in combination with a supplemental insurance market. Of note (and to the best of my recollection) the "Medicare-for-all" plan championed by Bernie Sanders specifically outlaws private insurance in order to avoid a scenario where we end up with a two-tier system (i.e. one for the rich, and one for everyone else).

TL;DR: A single-payer system is not Medicare-for-All. Single-payer solutions in and of themselves do not inform how we, as a country, should resolve the substantive policy differences inherent to our patchwork regulatory landscape without undermining states' rights and/or ballooning our national debt.