I thought you were out? Did you just say you were to seem smug? You sounded really smug.
What you are trying to say is that you can just switch over to single payer and you will save 8% in the next 10 or so years. That will not work out that way. I pointed out why our system costs more, and its not because its partly private.
Here is a paper on this very issue. Look at the tables from page 29 and beyond.
http://www.nber.org/papers/w13429.pdf
What you will see is that per capita, those in the US get far more treatment. I am not saying this is better treatment, but they get more treatment. That raises the cost.
Canada has 8.8% that have high blood pressure and 84.1% get treatment. US has 13.1% high blood pressure, and 88.3% get treatment.
If you look at women and things like mammograms, 88.6% of US women have had one, while 72.3% of Canadian women have had one.
Men's prostate test. 16.4% of men have had one, and 54.2% of US men have had one.
So, single payer will not fix this if there is not a shift in what people expect. A huge part of why the US healthcare system costs so much is that we expect far more to be done. End of life care is fucking crazy in this country. A huge chunk of why our system costs so much is EOL care.
I am not saying single payer is not the right path either. What I am saying is that if it is going to save us money, we need to be more realistic about the care we expect.