Democratic national healthcare plan would save $1.04 trillion

Ezra Klein examines the healthcare plan from political scientist Jakob Hacker that's the foundation of the Edwards, Obama, and Clinton healthcare plans:

The bottom line is that the Hacker structure covers just about everyone and saves huge amounts of money. At the start, bringing the changes to the [healthcare] system and the broad expansion of coverage to 46 million (or so) Americans means total federal spending increases by about $50 billion, but employer spending decreases by $10 billion, families save $22 billion, and states save about $20 billion. So it evens out.

But that's only on day one. Then, over time, the new system does quite a bit to cut costs through "restricting provider payment increases, negotiating deeper drug discounts, and simplified administration." The bottom line of the report is that "under these cost controls, total national health spending over the 2008 through 2017 period would be about $1.04 trillion less than under current law over that same period." That's $1.04 trillion in savings even with 47 million more Americans covered and far less economic insecurity for the rest of us. That's $1.04 trillion that can be spent on infrastructure, on schools, on homes and televisions and groceries and wars and iPhones and whatever else we decide to fund. And that's a big deal.