Our government already spends more on its healthcare programs (Medicare and Medicaid) than Germany and UK, and they don’t even cover half of the people. I don’t see how paying for everyone would save any money at all. It might make the per capita costs a bit lower, but total tax expenditure will certainly be higher.

We can't go to a program like the UK that's works out to be cheaper in the long run because our current half-assed program costs more? Not following the logic here. We already "pay" for the people we don't explicitly pay for. (Emergency room, lack of preventive care, etc)

The world abounds with concrete examples of systems that provide healthcare at a cost that would allow us to cover all our citizens at less than we're paying now, over all.

E.g., https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-...

(BTW, when talking about the overall cost, it doesn't make sense not to count the costs of employer-provided plans.)

The real question is how to we transition from the broken, hodgepodge system we have now to one of those proven better, and cheaper systems.

Right, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it is possible to have such system here. World also abounds with countries building cheap rail, but when we attempt this, it's very expensive. Just because it can be done, doesn't mean that it will end up happening the way you wish it to happen.

I think it would be worthwhile to have a pilot program of it here, say with a single small state introducing it. It could show us how it would end up working in practice.

The problem with a single small state is that providers will leave when you cut their pay.

The thing to do is to encourage many more people to do primary care.