How much of our total expenditure in private health insurance goes to the following?

* Executive pay and bonuses would be curtailed if not eliminated.

* The government might perform some advertising, but it wouldn't be the degree to which private competitive companies do.

* Lobbyists will be in Washington as long as there is wealth and influence to be had. They may have to switch focus.

* There are no stockholder dividends in government programs unless you count political favors given to lobbyists.

* Malpractice practice depends upon the strength of the legal lobbies. I'm guessing that they'll continue to get their slice of the pie.

* Whereas a market system rations its product by raising the price above the affordability of some, a single payer program rations according bureaucratic decision. Really, we already are largely bureaucratic. World War II wage controls and 1970's reforms leading to the HMO system have already greatly socialized medicine through the backdoor. Costs are born by a collective. A single payer system would simply push collective cost sharing to the national level. The result of either today's system or some future single payer one is a great deal of central planning. The mandates lead to following rules to protect the practitioners. Therefore, many unnecessary tests and procedures will continue to be administered. Meanwhile, other procedures could become unavailable at any price.

* Medications would cost pretty much what they do in real terms though recognizing those costs could become elusive since they will be funneled through general budgets. A single payer system would certainly make many of the “free”. However, as said before, price rationing will be replaced by bureaucratic rationing (google the English NICE agency).

* Legal fees would be partially replaced by bureaucratic expenses. However, to the extent that the legal lobby maintains the wide ability to raise lawsuits, we would still have legal fees to deal with.

Well.....in Great Britain Health care is the third largest employer in the WORLD and most of those are made up of Administration jobs. Great Britain which is about the size of Alabama....so you do the math.