alt Hacker News> The problem is that half the political system thinks you can cut taxes and grow revenues.
And the other half thinks you can pay for a European-style welfare state without European-style middle class taxes. Americans are Disney adults.
> The problem is that half the political system thinks you can cut taxes and grow revenues.
And the other half thinks you can pay for a European-style welfare state without European-style middle class taxes. Americans are Disney adults.
The US spends $2 Trillion dollars on Medicare + Medicaid a year [1][2].
Given that the US has a population of 342.7 million people [3], those two trillion dollars divides out to $5800 per resident per year.
The UK's universal healthcare system costs ~$4700 per person per year (~£3,500)[4].
If we could spend healthcare dollars as efficiently as the UK, the current government spending in the US is enough to support a single payer healthcare system covering every resident without raising taxes.
[1] https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-repo...
[2] https://www.kff.org/medicaid/medicaid-financing-the-basics/#...
[3] https://www.census.gov/popclock/
[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy7zvp5xrqo