Claim: The administration raises revenue for nationalized health care through a series of new taxes, including a light switch tax that would cost every American household $3,128 a year.
Verdict: REFUTES

Retrieved passages:
title: Health care reforms proposed during the Obama administration
text: Medicine reported in September 2012 that approximately $750B per year in U.S. health care costs are avoidable or wasted. This included: unnecessary services ($210 billion annually); inefficient delivery of care ($130 billion); excess administrative costs ($190 billion); inflated prices ($105 billion); prevention failures ($55 billion), and fraud ($75 billion). During a June 2009 speech, President Barack Obama outlined his strategy for reform. He mentioned electronic record-keeping, preventing expensive conditions, reducing obesity, refocusing doctor incentives from quantity of care to quality, bundling payments for treatment of conditions rather than specific services, better identifying and communicating the most cost-effective treatments, and reducing

title: Health care reforms proposed during the Obama administration
text: spent $8,233 on health per capita in 2010, two-and-a-half times more than the OECD average of $3,268 (adjusted for purchasing power parity). Following the United States were Norway and Switzerland which spent over $5,250 per capita. Americans spent more than twice as much as relatively rich European countries such as France, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The annual rate of cost increases slowed during 2010 and 2011. The causes are disputed, ranging from recession-related delays in visiting doctors to more long-term trends in moderating insurance premiums and reduced spending on structures and equipment. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

title: Health care reforms proposed during the Obama administration
text: would reallocate the money currently spent on the administrative overhead required to run the hundreds of insurance companies in the U.S. to provide universal care. An often-cited study by Harvard Medical School and the Canadian Institute for Health Information determined that some 31 percent of U.S. health care dollars, or more than $1,000 per person per year, went to health care administrative costs. Other estimates are lower. One study of the billing and insurance-related (BIR) costs borne not only by insurers but also by physicians and hospitals found that BIR among insurers, physicians, and hospitals in California represented 20–22% of

title: America's Healthy Future Act
text: the co-ops is intended to drive health care costs downward. The proposal also creates an individual mandate that requires people to either buy insurance or pay a penalty. Those with incomes below three times the federal poverty level would receive subsidies to purchase their plans. For a family of four, $66,150 would be the dividing line. The penalty would be up to $950 per person or $3,800 per family each year. These measures would come into effect for all American residents in 2013. According to "Politico": Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation

title: United States National Health Care Act
text: of the National Health Care Act includes the following elements, among others: An analysis of the bill by Physicians for a National Health Program estimated the immediate savings at $350 billion per year. Others have estimated a long-term savings amounting to 40% of all national health expenditures due the extended preventive healthcare and the elimination of insurance company overhead costs. A study by Harvard University and the Canadian Institute for Health Information estimated the 1999 costs of U.S. health care administration at nearly $300 billion, accounting for 30.1% of health care expenses, versus 16.7% in Canada. This study estimated the

title: Health care prices in the United States
text: The Federal Government subsidizes the employer-based market by an estimated $250 billion per year (about $1,612 per person covered in the employer market), by excluding health insurance premiums from employee income. This subsidy encourages people to buy more extensive coverage (which places upward pressure on average premiums), while also encouraging more young, healthy people to enroll (which places downward pressure on premium prices). CBO estimates the net effect is to increase premiums 10-15% over an un-subsidized level. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimated that family insurance premiums averaged $18,142 in 2016, up 3% from 2015, with workers paying $5,277 towards that

title: Single-payer healthcare
text: taxes would have to increase by $1,261 per capita" in order to pay for the plan. A July 1993 scoring also resulted in positive outcomes, with the CBO stating that, "[a]s the program was phased in, the administrative savings from switching to a single-payer system would offset much of the increased demand for health care services. Later, the cap on the growth of the national health budget would hold the rate of growth of spending below the baseline." The CBO also scored Sen. Paul Wellstone's American Health and Security Act of 1993 in December 1993, finding that "by year five

title: History of health care reform in the United States
text: approximately $1.0 trillion. Over the same ten-year period from 2010 to 2019, the CBO estimated that the bill would reduce the number of uninsured Americans by approximately 16 million. At about the same time, the Associated Press reported that the CBO had given Congressional officials an estimate of $1.6 trillion for the cost of a companion measure being developed by the Senate Finance Committee. In response to these estimates, the Senate Finance Committee delayed action on its bill and began work on reducing the cost of the proposal to $1.0 trillion, and the debate over the Affordable Health Choices act

title: Health care in the United States
text: insurance tends to provide either partial or no coverage of most services. Total out of pocket costs in 1997 were estimated to be about $27.0 billion. The U.S. spends more as a percentage of GDP than similar countries, and this can be explained either through higher prices for services themselves, higher costs to administer the system, or more utilization of these services, or to a combination of these elements. Health care costs rising far faster than inflation have been a major driver for health care reform in the United States. As of 2016, the US spent $3.3 trillion (17.9% of

title: America's Healthy Future Act
text: are more expensive and comprehensive than the majority of plans. Any plan costing over $8,000 for an individual and $21,000 for a family would be subject to a 35 percent tax on the amount past those levels. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal-leaning think tank, estimated that about 10 percent of families have plans that would be subject to the tax. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has argued that this tax is beneficial both because it grows fast enough to keep up with new costs and because it can helps to slow health care cost

title: Healthcare reform debate in the United States
text: but instead it will be modified so that all parts of this plan work accordingly. U.S. healthcare costs were approximately $3.2 trillion or nearly $10,000 per person on average in 2015. Major categories of expense include hospital care (32%), physician and clinical services (20%), and prescription drugs (10%). U.S. costs in 2016 were substantially higher than other OECD countries, at 17.2% GDP versus 12.4% GDP for the next most expensive country (Switzerland). For scale, a 5% GDP difference represents about $1 trillion or $3,000 per person. Some of the many reasons cited for the cost differential with other countries include:

title: United States National Health Care Act
text: U.S. per-person administrative cost at $1,059. On 13 September 2017, in the aftermath of his 2016 presidential campaign in which single-payer healthcare was among the core tenets of his platform, Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced the "Medicare-for-all Act of 2017" (S. 1804), a parallel bill to the "United States National Health Care Act" (H.R. 676) that was introduced by Rep. John Conyers in the House. Notably, Sanders had introduced a similar version of the bill in 2013, but no other Senators co-sponsored it. This time, his 2017 version attracted sixteen Democratic co-sponsors besides himself: Sanders explains the rationale for the bill

title: American Health Care Act of 2017
text: families) earning over $200,000 per year (the top 6%) receiving 70.6% of the benefit or a reduction of $5,680 in annual taxes on average. Those with incomes over $1 million (the top 0.4%) would see a tax decrease of $51,410 on average, receiving 46% of the benefit. In general, those with incomes over $50,000 would see a tax cut, while those with income below $50,000 would see a tax increase. Those with income below $10,000 would see a tax cut as well, but this benefit would be offset overall by reductions in Medicaid availability. The effects overall would worsen income

title: Health care prices in the United States
text: 16.9% GDP according to the OECD, over 5% GDP higher than the next most expensive OECD country. With U.S. GDP of $19 trillion, healthcare costs were about $3.2 trillion, or about $10,000 per person in a country of 320 million people. A gap of 5% GDP represents $1 trillion, about $3,000 per person relative to the next most expensive country. In other words, the U.S. would have to cut healthcare costs by roughly one-third ($1 trillion or $3,000 per person on average) to be competitive with the next most expensive country. Healthcare spending in the U.S. was distributed as follows

title: Health care in the United States
text: pharmaceutical companies; there is also a tax penalty for citizens who do not obtain health insurance (unless they are exempt due to low income or other reasons). The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the net effect (including the reconciliation act) will be a reduction in the federal deficit by $143 billion over the first decade. However, two months later, the office subsequently acknowledged that there was an additional $115 billion in funds needed that were not originally included in the estimate. Additionally, the CBO estimated that although projected premiums in 2016 would be lower by $100 per person for small

title: Health care finance in the United States
text: In other words, the U.S. would have to cut healthcare costs by roughly one-third ($1 trillion or $3,000 per person on average) to be competitive with the next most expensive country. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) reported that U.S. health care costs rose 5.8% to reach $3.2 trillion in 2015, or $9,990 per person. The Office of the Actuary (OACT) of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services publishes data on total health care spending in the United States, including both historical levels and future projections. In 2007, the U.S. spent $2.26 trillion on health care, or $7,439

title: American Health Care Reform Act of 2013
text: tax on wages above $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for married couples. Repealing the tax would save higher income families $117 billion over the next decade. Repeal an annual fee on health providers based on market share. Repealing the tax would save health insurers $145 billion over the next decade. Repeal an annual fee on prescription drugmakers and importers. Repealing it would save pharmaceutical companies $25 billion over the next decade. Allow taxpayers to deduct out-of-pocket health expenses if they exceed 7.5 percent of their income. The ACA limit is 10%. Taxpayers would save $35 billion over the next decade.

title: Healthcare reform debate in the United States
text: 2005 and the 34% reported in 2002 for the 34 states supplying information in each of these years." The Congressional Budget Office has also described how the tax treatment of insurance premiums may affect behavior: In November 2009, "The Economist" estimated that taxing employer-provided health insurance (which is presently exempt from tax) would add $215 billion per year to federal tax revenue during the 2013–2014 periods. Peter Singer wrote in the "New York Times" that the current exclusion of insurance premiums from compensation represents a $200 billion subsidy for the private insurance industry and that it would likely not exist

title: American Health Care Act of 2017
text: expense include hospital care (32%), physician and clinical services (20%), and prescription drugs (10%). U.S. costs in 2016 were substantially higher than other OECD countries, at 17.2% GDP versus 12.4% GDP for the next most expensive country (Switzerland). For scale, a 5% GDP difference represents about $1 trillion or $3,000 per person. Some of the many reasons cited for the cost differential with other countries include: Higher administrative costs of a private system with multiple payment processes; higher costs for the same products and services; more expensive volume/mix of services with higher usage of more expensive specialists; aggressive treatment of

title: Healthcare reform in the United States
text: has significant underinsurance and significant impending unfunded liabilities from its aging demographic and its social insurance programs Medicare and Medicaid (Medicaid provides free long-term care to the elderly poor). The fiscal and human impact of these issues have motivated reform proposals. U.S. healthcare costs were approximately $3.2 trillion or nearly $10,000 per person on average in 2015. Major categories of expense include hospital care (32%), physician and clinical services (20%), and prescription drugs (10%). U.S. costs in 2016 were substantially higher than other OECD countries, at 17.2% GDP versus 12.4% GDP for the next most expensive country (Switzerland). For scale,