So there is currently this diary on the wreck list claiming dishonesty by Bernie Sanders in his single payer healthcare plan. To boil down a VERY long diary and a ridiculous claim about Sanders being a “vanity candidate”, here is a summary of the numbers:
1) US currently spends $3 trillion on healthcare per year
2) If single payer lowered US per capita healthcare costs to be equal to Canada, we would still need to spend ~$1.85 trillion annually
3) Sander’s proposed payroll taxes raise ~$675 billion
So, Sanders must be lying because he’s $1.175 trillion short in taxes!! Now I did a search through the 600+ comments in the diary and I may have missed it, so if someone has already answered this question I apologize and will delete this diary. Ready for some crazy mathematical magic?
Annual government spending on Medicare: $619 billion
Annual government spending on Medicaid: $496 bilion
Annual government spending on VA: $150 billion (not all of this is healthcare, though)
Total government spending on healthcare before Sanders additional proposed taxes: ~$1.2 trillion
Updated title and formatting for clarity