In a prior post, I wrote about a report from the California Senate Appropriations Committee that estimated the cost of a proposed single-payer system in the state. The report concluded that, under the single-payer plan, health expenditures in the state would be around $400 billion per year, or 15% of California’s GDP.

Although many covered this as a ridiculously high figure, it is actually quite cheap relative to the US as a whole, which currently spends 18% of its GDP on health care. For those not reflexively afraid of large numbers, it is clear that this cost is definitely doable and is quite a bargain for the benefits the single-payer plan is said to provide.

After that report came out, a new, more detailed cost estimate was provided by economists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The methods in the UMass paper are mercifully easy to follow.