> As to the single payer - a while ago I mentioned the issue of the cost
> of the current (employer provided system) as an obstacle to business
> profitability to Dr. Vincente Navarro of JHU (he was on Clinton's
> health care task force). My argument was that business should support
> universal health care as a way of externalizing their cost. He
> disagreed. In his view, the capitalists did not mind bearing that
> cost because it accorded them control of labor.
Last week the Economist cited some economist (I can't look up the exact reference now) who believed that most businesses didn't care about the cost of health care since it had been effectively externalized to workers via pay cuts; this was cited as one of the major reasons for pay stagnation over past few decades in the US.
If my math is correct (GDP * 0.07 / number of employed), that means that those extra 7% of GDP US spends on healthcare (compared to other developed countries) would've meant about $7000 of extra income per worker every year.