To the editor:

Last Sunday (Nov. 25), there was an editorial about single-payer healthcare in The Journal. Its aim was to scare people into thinking that a single-payer system would be “costly and damaging.” it claimed there are several flaws with the system that would cause it to fail. What was instead printed, was an ideological attack on the policy by claiming it would be “socialism” and would be costly.

First, National Healthcare isn’t a socialist program and instead is a social democratic fixture that is in place in the vast majority of the industrialized world. In the rest of the world, you don’t have to stress about whether an ambulance ride will bankrupt you or if slipping on ice and breaking your back will cost you as much as a new car. You are covered and taken care of.

Second, single payer or specifically the Medicare for All system that Bernie Sanders proposes would SAVE the United States money. Currently, the projected costs of healthcare between 2022 and 2031 are $59.4 trillion. Those costs would drop to $57.6 trillion under the Medicare-for-all plan according to a Mercatus Working Paper published by George Mason University. That is $2 trillion dollars less and covers everyone, unlike the more expensive option.

How does it save money? Three words: Buying in Bulk.

Currently, we are all in separate pools for insurance companies to evaluate. The more people in the pool, the lower the costs. Single payer means that the nation is the pool, which means that costs can be negotiated down because of how big the pool is. It would save you and local businesses money.

Average working families who paid $6,273 per year in healthcare costs under the market system, would pay just $466 per year. That is $5,800 per year savings.

For businesses, those average healthcare costs for a worker with a family would go from $12,591 to $3,100. These are huge financial savings that single payer could provide to the nation. More importantly, though, it would save thousands of lives and help the nation literally heal.

Preston Meyer

Nicollet