What exactly are the estimated funds needed to take care of the health needs of all the uninsured anyway?
Let us make the simple straightforward explanation here. In 2001 14.1% of the US GDP (gross domestic product) was spent on health care (an enormous percentage of GDP compared to any other country). In 2005 it was projected that by 2015 we would be spending a whopping 19% of GDP on health care and a year later that was already increased to an estimated $4.3 TRIL annually by the year 2017. A recent Institute of Medicine (body of our National Academy of Sciences which often is commissioned to advise the government) found that an increase of merely 0.4% (to 14.5% of GDP) would be adequate to cover all health care expenses of the currently uninsured. This estimate is based on the costs (at current prices) for the health care. It does not include huge profits, benefits and salaries that could be siphoned off by unecessary middlemen (insurers, insurance brokers, insurance adjusters, insurance marketing, claims appeal officers etc. ). We could also simply compare the GDP costs in health care i
