The ability of U.S. businesses to accurately budget for their employees’ health care expenses is critical, but nearly impossible in today’s environment. Costs are subject to steep, unpredictable increases, and are unevenly and unfairly distributed. Companies that provide generous benefits, and those with older or sicker workers face crippling costs, while others evade their responsibility to chip in, leaving their employees with no or inadequate coverage.

In contrast, nations that manage health care expenses in a single risk pool provide their businesses with much greater financial predictability, and costs are distributed more fairly. Thanks to a single-payer system’s ability to reduce needless uncertainty and variation in one part of the budget, a company will be able to allocate more resources toward activities that directly enhance its central business mission and its ability to compete in the global marketplace.

The complexity of our nation’s current health insurance arrangements has created a uniquely American industry of consultants and advisers who assist companies in annual renegotiations with insurers and other firms, in redesigning benefits plans, in communicating such plans to employees, and more. These activities amount to a costly diversion of both time and money from a company’s central goals. Warren Buffett has said health care costs hurt businesses more than corporate taxes do, and calls medical costs “the tapeworm of American economic competitiveness.” An improved Medicare for all will eliminate this business distraction and enable human resource departments to refocus on more strategically valuable roles within their companies.