Establishing a national single-payer-style healthcare reform system would provide a major stimulus for the U.S. economy, according to the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.
According to a study released by the group, this method of reform would create 2.6 million new jobs and infuse $317 billion in new business and public revenues, with another $100 billion in wages, into the U.S. economy.
"These dramatic new findings document for the first time that a single-payer system could not only solve our healthcare crisis, but also substantially contribute to putting America back to work and assisting the economic recovery," said Geri Jenkins, RN, co-president of the NNOC/CAN.
"Through direct and supplemental expenditures, healthcare is already a uniquely dominant force in the U.S. economy," said Don DeMoro, lead author of the study and director of the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy, the NNOC/CNA research arm.
"However, so much more is possible. If we were to expand our present Medicare system to cover all Americans, the economic stimulus alone would create an immense engine that would help drive our national economy for decades to come," DeMoro said.
According to the study, expanding Medicare to include the uninsured and those on Medicaid or employer-sponsored health plans and expanding coverage for those with limited Medicare would:
• create 2,613,495 new, permanent, good-paying jobs (slightly exceeding the number of jobs lost in 2008);
• add $317 billion in increased business and public revenues to the economy;
• add $100 billion in employee compensation; and
• infuse public budgets with $44 billion in new tax revenues.
DeMoro said moving to the new system comes with an unexpectedly low price tag, given the economic benefits and the far-reaching consequences of genuine healthcare reform. Adding all Americans to an expanded Medicare could be achieved for $63 billion beyond the current $2.1 trillion in direct healthcare spending.
Healthcare presently accounts for $2.105 trillion in direct expenditures. But healthcare spreads far beyond doctor's offices and hospitals. Adding in healthcare business purchases of services or supplies and spending by workers, the total impact of healthcare in the economy mushrooms to nearly $6 trillion.