[quote=joec]
I don’t know if the costs would actually be 12% of someone’s salary, but it seems like if EVERYONE working was forced to pay into the system, companies would be more than happy to just dump all their health care plans (they pay a TON) already and just find a percentage where it’s sustainable and still profitable for hospitals/doctors, etc…

Maybe that’s 12%, maybe 5%, but that seems a ton cheaper than what companies spend probably. I’ve heard companies would good benefits spend over 10k per employee. It could be taken from employee count, but that would make companies less likely to hire if it was a high per employee fee.
[/quote]

Many companies offering health insurance probably do spend close to 10K per employee. The question is if we removed that burden from the employer and put in on the employee via some type of income tax would you expect the companies to give the employee the cost saving in wages or would the companies attempt to keep that cost savings in profits. Obviously if the companies keep that savings in profits all employees will be worse off.

The fundamental issue is there’s virtually unlimited demand for medical services and tests if you don’t have to pay for it. Single payer solves the rising costs of infinite demand problem via rationing. A free market system would solve that problem via competition of providers. Of course single payer does have the problem that you don’t necessarily attract the best and the brightest to become doctors because your single payer system has limited their compensation package. The best and brightest still might become doctors but they won’t be available to the users of the single payer system. They’ll exist outside of the system treating those that can afford to pay supplemental coverage.