The Economic Benefit of Transitioning Healthcare Systems: A Study of Private and Single Payer Systems

American healthcare consumers pay the highest cost for healthcare out of any other country in the industrialized world. Consumers pay on average $9255 per capita a year for healthcare and related expenses (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 2014, P. 5). Such high prices are a result of a combination of rapidly increasing billing, bureaucratic expenses, and profit maximization by for-profit healthcare providers and related producers. Consumers see very little positive gain for the increase in price, ranking highest in metrics such as infant mortality rate and obesity related issues (Masters, et al. 2009, P. 2). Consumers are also hampered long term by increasingly expensive medical bills, which constitutes the largest portion of citizen-based bankruptcies in America. By transitioning to a single payer-based insurance system consumer will see a significant drop in administrative expenses, lower costs for operations, medications, and wellness exams, and an increased availability in access to physician care