Universal Health Coverage Could Save $1 Trillion and 114,000 Lives Every Year, Yale Study Projects, Yale School of Public Health, August 13, 2026, by Matt Kristoffersen
A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it would replace, according to a new preprint study led by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health.
ForĀ the study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, the researchers modeled what would happen if the United States adopted a national public insurance program like the one proposed in theĀ Medicare for All Act.
The researchers modeled what would happen if the United States adopted a national public insurance program like the one proposed in theĀ Medicare for All Act. Using 2024 spending, insurance coverage, and mortality data, they estimate that the universal coverage would reduce annual health expenditures by $1.04 trillion, or nearly 20% ā even after accounting for the additional care that uninsured and underinsured people would receive.
āHealthcare costs have been rising faster than inflation, and a staggering share of that spending is consumed by administrative middlemen, soaring drug prices, and emergency care for conditions that should have been treated earlier and for less,ā said senior author Alison Galvani, the Burnett and Stender Families Professor of Epidemiology at YSPH and the director of the Yale Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis. āMedicare for All strips out those sources of waste while providing everyone with healthcare, saving over a trillion dollars and 114,000 lives every year.ā
The researchers argue that the United States already spends enough to provide universal coverage. The problem, they conclude, is how that money is allocated.
āA system that covers everyone, costs $1 trillion less, and averts more than 100,000 deaths annually requires no new discovery to implement, only enactment,ā they wrote.
Comment:
By Don McCanne, M.D. and Jim Kahn, M.D., M.P.H.
One of the most common rejoinders to the comment that we can provide comprehensive health care to everyone through a single payer Medicare for All program is that we canāt afford it. This study (published as a preprint) shows that not only can we afford it, we can include everyone and save somewhere about $1 trillion a year compared to our current level of health care spending.
These results indicate that we can convert the most expensive and poorly performing US health care system to one which covers everyone at a cost significantly lower than we spend now, while avoiding many deaths.
How? Because we currently waste huge sums on administrative bloat and over-priced drugs, and impaired access to care via tens of millions of uninsured and burdensome cost-sharing barriers among the insured. It isĀ efficientĀ to cover everybody with the same simple and comprehensive insurance, slashing administrative costs. Itās also efficient to negotiate better drug prices. And it isĀ effectiveĀ to provide universal, unimpeded access to care. In other words,Ā efficiency enables effectiveness. And while weāre on the Es, single payer is completelyĀ equitableĀ ā everyone is treated the same. We call itĀ The Magical Three Eās of Health Reform.
The answer to the question, āHow can we afford single payer?ā is, āHow can we affordĀ notĀ to do it?ā
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