09/23/2026
Time and time again, prominent peer-reviewed and preprint studies estimate that transitioning to a universal single-payer healthcare system in the United States would save both lives and money.
According to a new preprint study led by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health, 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.
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% — even after accounting for the additional care that uninsured and underinsured people would receive.
“Healthcare 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.” - Alison Galvani, PhD, Director of the Yale Center for Infectious Diseases, and Modeling and Analysis (CIDMA) Burnett and Stender Families Professor of Epidemiology (Microbial Diseases)
Abdul El-Sayed
Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan
Bernie Sanders
Pramila Jayapal
