comment: >
  
  So if you somehow doubled the number of GPS and halved the number of specialists while miraculously having no detrimental impacts to the switch you’ve saved a whopping 4% and change, taking per capita healthcare spending from $12,530 to $11,903. 
  I’d be fascinated in an explanation of how exactly you’d do that given massive political opposition, taking away peoples cardiologists and oncologists isn’t going to sit well. 
  Either way, you’re proving my point, substantial savings can’t be achieved even with relatively large tweaks.
context: Vermont tried, they couldn't afford it
  California also tried but ran into funding issues 
  Seems like cost is the problem mostly >
  
  Exactly.  The good old "but its free" nonsense turns out to actually have enormous costs associated with it.  Whod have thunk it?  LOL.
  Health care needs fixing in numerous ways but just chucking huge piles of money at it will NOT fix anything.  It will just facilitate the abuse, red tape, overhead & current problems even more. >
  
  No one believes health care is free. The question is who pays for it, and who (if anyone) profits from it.  Every other developed nation on earth provides better health care for less money than the United States. >
  
  Most other countries have much flatter tax systems that generate a larger portion of revenue from lower and middle income earners then the US does, in part due to VAT (which is similar to a sales tax). 
  Healthcare staff also earn significantly less, nurses in London earn about half what nurses in Mobile, Alabama do. 
  The mechanism of payment also varies greatly between “every other country”, many are closer to the US then Canada. 
  The commonality they share is they enact price controls for medical procedures to lower costs. The US could cap reimbursement at Medicaid rates tomorrow and lower costs to a far greater extent then what could be achieved by moving to single payer or multi payer a la France, Germany or a whole host of others. >
  
  You're ignoring the incredibly high transaction costs associated with our system, as well as the perverse incentives created by it.  Our system is HUGELY inefficient.  For example: we have way too many specialists and not enough general practitioners, pediatricians, and geriatricians, which are all lower-paid jobs.  Perverse incentives in a nutshell. >
  
  That’s non-sequitur to the point, the current system could be improved but the primary way other countries hold costs down is by implementing price caps.