"I am all for affordable healthcare for everybody, just desperately afraid of how the gov't typically overspends." Medicare currently operates on a 3% margin.

"I am all for affordable healthcare for everybody, just desperately afraid of how the gov't typically overspends." Medicare currently operates on a 3% margin. That is, 97% of funds in the medicare program go toward reimbursing patient care. The vast majority of private health insurers operate on a 20-30% margin. The rest of the money goes towards marketing, sales, and towards profit. Like it or not, every body is shouldering the cost of uninsured patients. One in 6 Americans don't have health insurance, yet they still consume health care. Who pays for that? Everybody does. Hospitals are under a federal mandate to care for everyone regardless of ability to pay. So, to compensate for their losses on uninsured patients. They artificially inflate the rates they charge everyone else to compensate. So, every time you use the health care system, you are paying for uninsured people's care. Hospitals that have a disproportionately large share of uninsured and minimally insured patients (e.g. a county hospital, non-profit hospitals in the ghetto, small rural hospitals in farming country) routinely need and receive government subsidies to function. Those hospitals are largely subsidized by special funding bills. Universal coverage, just means that we are now going to be explicit in determining how we are going to pay for people's health care. edit: added 3rd paragraph.