“We believe the available research supports the conclusion that a program of Medicare for All (M4A) could be considerably less expensive than the current system, reducing waste and profiteering inherent in the current system, and could be financed in a way to ensure significant financial savings for the vast majority of American households.”

Twenty leading U.S. economists released an open letter on Tuesday arguing that a single-payer health care system would save tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions each year. The economists’ letter comes amid fallout from the coronavirus pandemic and questions about how the U.S.’s uniquely for-profit healthcare system will respond to the need for mass testing and treatments.

“We believe the available research supports the conclusion that a program of Medicare for All (M4A) could be considerably less expensive than the current system, reducing waste and profiteering inherent in the current system, and could be financed in a way to ensure significant financial savings for the vast majority of American households,” the economists wrote in the open letter.

American voters consistently cite healthcare as their most important issue. At around 18% of GDP, American per capita health care expenditures are more than twice the average of the 35 advanced countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Yet despite outspending these countries, the U.S. “has the lowest life expectancy, the greatest incidence of chronic illnesses, and the highest infant, child, and maternal mortality rates” in the OECD, according to economist Robert H. Frank.

“There’s been too much loose talk that Medicare for All is unaffordable,” Dr. Gerald Friedman told Business Insider. “What’s really unaffordable is the current system. We spend about twice the average for affluent countries in the OECD on healthcare.”

“Most important, Medicare for All will reduce morbidity and save tens of thousands of lives each year,” the group of economists said in the letter.

One Harvard study found that 45,000 Americans die per year because they are uninsured. According to the American Journal of Public Health, medical bills or missed work from illness drive 500,000 Americans into bankruptcy every year. Meanwhile, new research from the medical journal Lancet shows that Medicare for All would save more than 68,000 lives and $450 billion a year

“No developed country other than the United States relies on largely unregulated insurance companies for the provision of health care,” Economist Robert H. Frank told Evonomics last year, citing America’s weakly regulated profit-driven health care model as the reason for higher costs and worse outcomes.

Pssst, while you're here...

In 20 states in a row, Democratic primary voters have voiced their support for Medicare for All over the current system in exit polls. But in an interview with MSNBC on Monday, leading Democratic nominee Joe Biden suggested that he would veto Medicare for All legislation should it pass Congress. Biden’s strong Super Tuesday performance over former front runner Bernie Sanders, who champions a Medicare for All system, caused health insurance stocks to surge at the prospect of a candidate more amenable to their industry’s interests.

Coronavirus And U.S. Health Care System

National Nurses United President Jean Ross told DemocracyNow on Wednesday that the current system has left health care workers unprepared to handle the scale of the Coronavirus crisis, and argued that a national health insurance plan would help the country care for lower income Americans, who are disincentivized from seeking treatment and therefore more likely to spread the virus to others.

“Well, if we had a national healthcare system, like some other countries do, we would be in a far better position. For example, if you look at a country like Canada, who had to undergo the SARS crisis, and they were able to do it in large part because of that system,” said Ross. “We have such a patchwork here that’s dependent on profit. Then our homeless communities, our immigrants, that you mentioned, those of lower economic status are going to be the ones hardest hit. They’re going to not want to come in, because they don’t have the money to pay.”

While President Trump claimed on Wednesday night that major U.S. insurance companies “have agreed to waive all copayments for coronavirus treatments” in order to curb the spread of the disease, a spokesperson for America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), a top insurance industry lobbying group, clarified to a Politico reporter that waived copays were strictly “for testing. Not for treatment.”

Read the economists’ open letter in full below: