And I'm not buying the socialist fantasy now, either. The $700 billion number in waste is utter crap. If you look back at the link showing the financials of the top health insurance companies, their total revenues are only $287 billion.

You don't think Buck. You recite. Who are you going to raise taxes on? You think the average worker wants to see the load transferred to their back from their employers? The Great Middle Class would burn any politician at the stake who suggested a tax rate any higher than what they already pay. So the businesses are going to get socked with it. All of it. After the destruction of the private insurance system, you really think the taxes are going to stay low with millions of non-paying voters demanding platinum service for free?

The basic administrative functions performed by the insurance industry would also have to be performed by personnel working for the socialist medical system. A lot of costs get concealed on things like Medicaid. For example, the costs of gathering the taxes that pay for it are charged to other parts of the government. Private companies do that themselves.

Sure, the People's Health Care won't have to advertise. Government-controlled monopolies never have to. You buy what they deliver, or hope you can afford to go somewhere else. Assuming they don't make "somewhere else" illegal.

Competitive business is inherently more inefficient than tyranny, looked at from a sheer use of resources. Think of all the money and resources we would save if there were only one brand of every product. Chosen by our rulers, of course.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but the government practically defines useless bureaucracy, the hiring of thousands of unnecessary employees performing often unnecessary functions, and costs far exceeding value received.