The CBO released a report in February which adds weight to the findings of the Colorado report--called for by HB19-1176 and prepared by The Health Care Cost Analysis Task Force.

Economic Effects of Five Illustrative Single-Payer Health Care Systems: Working Paper 2022-02

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57637?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzEmail&utm_content=812526&utm_campaign=Express_2022-02-23_14:30:00&utm_medium=FeedBlitzEmail&utm_content=812526&utm_campaign=Express_2022-02-23_14:30:00

Summary: The Congressional Budget Office just released a powerful report, highlighting multiple ways in which single payer would strengthen the economy. That’s right, not just health, but also general economic productivity and well-being. Efficiently financed universal health care improves health and reduces financial burdens, boosting economic performance.

Economic Effects of Five Illustrative Single-Payer Health Care Systems

Congressional Budget Office

February 2022

By Jaeger Nelson, with assistance of CBO Staff

This paper builds on previous studies published by the Congressional Budget Office about single-payer health care systems.

We analyze six channels through which a single-payer system would affect the economy:

* The composition of workers’ labor compensation would change because employers would no longer provide health care benefits and would pass along the savings to employees, increasing their taxable wages.

* Households’ health insurance premiums would be eliminated, and their out-of-pocket (OOP) health care costs would decline.

* Administrative expenses in the health care sector would decline, freeing up productive resources for other sectors and ultimately increasing economywide productivity.

* Reduced payment rates to providers would increase productivity and efficiency in providing health care; however, some of the reduction in payment rates would be passed through to workers’ wages in the health care sector and throughout the supply chain.

* Longevity and labor productivity would increase as people’s health outcomes improved.

* [Long-term care] benefits would further reduce OOP spending, provide payments for care that is currently unpaid, increase wages among workers providing care, and allow some unpaid caregivers to increase their hours worked at their primary occupation.

[W]orkers would choose to work fewer hours, on average, despite higher wages because the reduction in health insurance premiums and OOP expenses would generate a positive wealth effect that allowed households to spend their time on activities other than paid work and maintain the same standard of living.

Moreover, that wealth effect would boost households’ disposable income ... Although hours worked per capita would decline, … under most policy specifications [there would be] an increase in economywide productivity, an increase in the size of the labor force, an increase in the average worker’s labor productivity, and a rise in the capital stock. … nonhealth consumption per capita would rise by about 11.5 percent by 2030.

Linda Mahan

LWV Larimer County, CO