All the news outlets this afternoon are reporting on the Senate’s rebuke of President Trump’s Syria and Afghanistan policy. All except one – Fox News. Fox not only chooses instead to run a headline that plays more to Trump’s base. There is not one mention of the Senate vote, which numerous Republicans backed and passed 68-23.

Today we have seen two potentially aspiring presidential candidates, Howard Schultz and Michael Bloomberg, say that a Medicare-for-all system would bankrupt the country.

I suggest there is a path to a Medicare-for-all system that will not bankrupt the country and, in fact, could reduce the total amount of expenditures in health care in the U.S.

In 2017, national health care (NHC) expenditures in the U.S. totaled $3.5 trillion, or $10,739 per person. NHC includes expenditures on hospitalization, physician and clinical services, prescription drugs and health insurance.

Medicare and Medicaid covered approximately $1.3 trillion, leaving $2.2 trillion that is paid for by other sources.

Americans… businesses and individuals… paid out a total of approximately $1.2 billion for health insurance. Assuming all of that was paid into a national health care fund instead, that would a leave $1.1 shortfall that would have to be paid for by some other means to “break even”, most likely by increasing taxes on corporations and individuals.

So here’s the paradox. U.S. NHC expenditures of $10,739 per person is more than twice as much as the average per capita expenditures of $5,280 for the eleven most highly developed and richest countries in the world. It is 2.2 times more than Canada spends on health care per capita at $4,826 per person.

If though economies of scale, fee negotiations and changes in malpractice and pharmaceutical legislation the U.S. could cut NHC expenditures by 31.5% to $7,364 per capita, then there would be no shortfall.

$7,364 per capita is still 40% higher than the eleven most highly advanced and richest countries in the world, and 53% more than Canada spends on health care per capita. The only highly developed country that outlays more than $7,364 per capita for healthcare is Switzerland.

And that does not consider that a NHC system should not pay for elective surgeries such as cosmetic surgery, performance enhancing drugs and the like. For those needs Americans can still maintain personal supplemental health insurance. Private health care insurance does not have to disappear completely.

If one considers the situation logically, doesn’t a national health care, or “medicare-for-all” system seem within reach if we have the will as a nation to make it happen?