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Most Americans don't realize just how huge and extensive medicare/medicaid is. They cover 65mil and 88mil people respectively, including 40mil children. That's 153mil people out of 330mil population -- that's 46% of the USA's population. Total spending is $1.9T for both. A cost of $12,400/person covered. $1.9T is 7.5% of the total US GDP of $25.44T. Medicare/medicaid is a massive program. Bigger than social security at $1.4T. It's crazy huge.

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In that case, why not just go all the way to Medicare for All?

Because with the current medical cost, it would be absolutely ruinous. The root problem is American health care is far too expensive. The entire system is massively wasteful and complex.

Seems like unifying it under a single, already-extant federal system would greatly reduce administrative overhead though, don’t you think?

What’s funny is I’m probably one of the people whose paycheck is dependent on me not understanding that to paraphrase Upton Sinclair. When I started at my current employer, one of the devs straight up said the government should be doing what we do and we shouldn’t have a business.

Unfortunately, several million people work in medical billing and insurance. No politician that is aiming to get re-elected wants to double the employment rate. It would cure inflation almost instantly though!

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