Most Americans get their insurance either from the government or from their employers. Something like nine percent buy insurance directly from private insurance companies.

Employers typically cover about 70 percent of the cost, leaving employees to contribute the remaining 30 percent. You and I both know it all counts against the cost of an employee to the company, but the employee sees only that 30 percent. That's your current "tax."

Now, if you just funnel all that cash and power directly to the State, which is of course the real point of the entire "single payer" exercise, you'll still have to keep up some version of that division of payments. The employee pays his 30 percent to the State, and the employer pays his 70 percent. Note that the common myth about employers being "free of health insurance costs" under single-payer systems is just that. A myth. SOMEBODY is going to pay that bill.

Again, this also all depends on the amazing proposition that having the government run the entire system will result in lower costs, greater efficiency, and less corruption. I'm sorry, but there's no real-world precedent for this.