The widely-reported opinion that California cannot afford to provide comprehensive healthcare to all of its residents has been debunked by a recently released study of the projected costs of the Healthy California Act, SB 562, by the Political Economic Research Institute at UMass Amherst.

The misleading figure of $404 billion that is often quoted is the cost under the existing fragmented, dysfunctional, for-profit insurance system. But a single payer plan like SB 562 has many cost-savings built in; among them hugely reducing the administrative costs involved in private insurance and bringing the weight of California to the table when negotiating with drug companies. Access to early and preventative care will cut down expensive emergency room visits. The real estimated cost of SB 562 is $331 billion, a savings of 18 percent over the $368.5 billion we are paying now to leave 2.7 million of our neighbors uninsured and another 12 million underinsured.

So where will that $331 billion come from? First, $225 billion of our total healthcare costs is already taxpayer financed through Medicare, Medi-Cal and subsidies to private insurers. With waivers we would shift these funds into the Healthy California system and according to the study, we could finance the remaining $106 billion with two new taxes. Yes, that dirty word “taxes.” But under this plan all businesses that currently provide health insurance would actually save money and so would very nearly all households. Businesses would pay 2.3 percent on gross revenues, with the first $2 million exempted, which would mean that the smallest businesses would pay nothing. The projected net savings for small businesses that currently provide health benefits is 22 percent, 7-13 percent savings for medium-sized businesses, and 0.6 percent for larger employers. This tax is projected to raise $92 billion.

The remaining $14.3 billion would be funded by a sales tax of 2.3 percent that would exempt spending on housing, utilities, food at home and other necessities. Since all premiums, deductibles, co-pays and out-of-pocket expenses for services that will be newly covered under SB 562 will be eliminated, low-income families can expect to save 1.2-5.5 percent and middle-income families 2.6-9.1 percent over what they are paying now. Only higher-income families will see a small increase of 1.5-1.7 percent.

While Healthy California’s comprehensive benefits are too many to list, they include all the benefits covered by Medicare, Medi-Cal and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. In addition to in- and out-patient medical, hospitalization, emergency care, health and wellness education, and much more, it will also cover services that are often not covered: dental, vision, prescription drugs, mental health and addiction services, acupuncture, chiropractic and other proven safe and effective complementary and integrative health services, adult day care, and hospice services, to name just a few.

Instead of being limited by narrow insurance company networks, Californians will have free choice of any provider. Healthcare decision-making will be returned to the province of highly-trained medical professionals, in partnership with their patients, where it belongs.

The current healthcare system has excluded millions of people and it has too often led to situations that have resulted in increased illness and death. More than half of all bankruptcies in the U.S. arise from a medical issue, and of those bankruptcies three-quarters had healthcare insurance when the medical problem started. The U.S. has the most expensive health care among industrialized countries, all of which have some form of universal healthcare, but ranks near the bottom for health outcomes. We can do better. We need to enact SB 562. We can’t afford not to.

Virginia Schwingel, Marcia Heath, Elbina Rafizadeh, Chris Bowman for Medicare for All, Santa Cruz. For the full study, visit goo.gl/vhQaMa.