[lemoncucumber]

Your math is completely wrong, though not in the way the other poster said. You're making the classic mistake treating percentages as though they add and subtract when they really multiply.

> "So, if we adopted a true single payer system, by this math, the total spend in the US healthcare system would drop by 3%. US healthcare costs have recently been growing by 6% per year, so this would bring our costs all the way down to where they were on election day, 2016."

Assuming the numbers are right, if we adopted a true single payer system, costs would drop from 7% to 3%, a 42% reduction. After such a reduction, the spending would take nearly 10 years to grow back to whatever its original dollar value was at a 6% growth rate, not 6 months.

[smnrchrds]

I don't understand your math. Even if administrative costs dropped to zero, prices would fall only 7%. This is the point that OP is arguing for.

[lemoncucumber]

Fair enough, I see now. I thought OP was saying that administrative costs would bounce back that quickly, not overall costs.