Single payer as a model in other industries not related to healthcare.

Think of apple's obscene profits. We could drastically reduce the cost of living.

By the way: this is an absolutely serious question.

If the government can lower the prices of medical delivery by having everyone under its wing and massively expanding its bargaining power, then that could be a model for an entire economic system

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By the way: this is an absolutely serious question.

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No.

HERE is what is serious.

On every college campus in America, there are students AND professors who hear your question and their answer is, "you are correct..........we SHOULD do that for all the other industries".

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Think of apple's obscene profits. We could drastically reduce the cost of living.

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The Obama-tards already believe that "cell-phone ownership is a RIGHT".

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The companies always have the option of providing their service or product at a lower quality to offset their lower revenue.

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This.

People forget basic economic principles. The only thing that can truly drive cost is the market. Government only creates additional costs that adversely affect consumers.

Do we as a society think every person needs to have a cellphone no matter what? Like we do with providing life saving services?

Do we see cell phone ownership as biologically necessary to maintain and insure a healthy and long life and maintaining the health of the larger society?

If we determine healthcare should be treated like any other commodity, we can organize the structure around healthcare like any other commodity with a few caveats. But people need to accept what the trade offs in that scenario are. That is why the Republican position is often so ridiculous.

Other then it being a system of immense information asymmetry, which cell phones do not have, and the often urgency and lack of comparative shopping that can be done in emergencies, you could treat healthcare like any other commodity if you wanted, but healthcare is expensive, innovation is partially driven by the fact we pour immense amounts of money into the sector by the government, these things will take a major hit. Many people will not be able to afford adequate care and that will have larger social and economic effects. Innovation and growth in the industry will likely slow, and we will likely see a major drop in quality of life and life expectancy in the aggregate.

That though is the flaw in the premise of the OP.

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Do we as a society think every person needs to have a cellphone no matter what? Like we do with providing life saving services?

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What does that have to do with the question?

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Do we see cell phone ownership as biologically necessary to maintain and insure a healthy and long life and maintaining the health of the larger society

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What does that have to do with the question?

The question resolved around the assertion that single payer would save money because the govt being the purchaser would be able to get great prices.

Now, if you're just wanting to assert "we must do this because we love people" type argument.........great. But that's not what the question is about.

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If everyone paid in and the government became a single buyer of cell phones and cell phone plans, wouldn't that massively reduce the price of both?

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Do we as citizens get a choice of cell phone type and plan?

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The premise of the OP is to ask if the assertion that single payer will save money passes economic scrutiny.

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We have the answer to this. You can look at the total cost of healthcare in America vs any single payer system. They win, every time, universally. End of story.

Why should we not use it for every other commodity in existence? Because of what I just said. Adding that if you get the price of the product to the point cell phones are, which provide the full array of their core services for often less then 100 bucks a month and the need for more complex mechanisms to deal with the much more consequential market sector becomes less necessary. From just a cold calculating standpoint, the math makes no sense to apply such models to basic commodities that are extremely affordable.

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We have the answer to this. You can look at the total cost of healthcare in America vs any single payer system. They win, every time, universally. End of story

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So their healthcare inflation is very dissimilar to ours? Of their total costs? Are their populations dissimilar or similar? Are their expectations and treatment models similar or dissimilar? Are their outcomes similar or dissimilar?

I mean, if we want a straight line, we can always get just two data points and call it a day.