From my limited knowledge of the USA system I’d say that nothing much would change. The state health system would become a bit better and private health systems would continue to operate just like they operate now.
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. If you need further answers, just look at all the other countries that went through it already and see what happened there. You can see Canada, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Cuba, in fact I think everyone else I can think of.

cuts out the middleman.

How the heck can you defend a multi BILLION dollar industry that produces NOTHING.

They will cease to exist as what happens when the government becomes a player in the market instead of an arbiter. We get to watch the government simultaneously regulate the health care back into the Stone Age while eliminating the competition.

If they wanted to become a participating payor in the government plan they would have to agree to the payment formulary outlined by the government. For the companies that chose to go along with the government plan, you’d end up seeing a whole lot more HMO type plans available and the PPO plans would pretty much go away. Those that didn’t participate as payors under the government’s terms would pass their extra costs on to the consumer purchasing the insurance. If doctors are given an option to participate, they’ll refuse to accept the government plans and will jack up their costs to private pay insurance clients (the same as many are doing with Medicaid today). If it’s all nationalized and we fall under one payor, just take a look at how Medicaid works today and that’s what you’ll get. Doctors will also close up shop. Demand will be high and supply of qualified health care professionals will be low.

Edit - Another thing to consider is that there will be unanticipated levels of enrollment if they leave multiple payors in place and only have the government plan for those whose employers don’t offer coverage. Larger businesses will be required to offer insurance, but businesses with few employees won’t. Those small businesses that are offering it now will stop. Their employees will then become dependent on the government health care system. My mom’s a small business owner and pays part of her employee’s insurance costs now. I can assure you that if this kicks in she’ll drop it. She’s having a hard enough time keeping her doors open as it is and that would save her a ton. This is exactly what happened when Hawaii went to their plan to insure all children in the state. People dropped their private insurance and used the state insurance. The program lasted for about 6-7 months before the state couldn’t afford it any more.

@ bob k - If you think the greedy insurance companies are bad about determining what care you will and will not receive, wait until the government decides that for you. Ask any Medicaid patient about how much say they or their doctors have in the care that they receive, and you’ll love your greedy insurance company.

They would definitely shrink, but they would still be around. Look at Medicare, they have supplement polices which the individual has to pay. If you think the government is going to pay for Heart surgery, Cancer treatment, you’re in for a rude awakening.

A single payer health care system would replace all the health insurers. They would all have to go find work elsewhere. This would result in billions of dollars in savings.

the 3500+ health insurers each have their own billing requirements that tie doctors and hospitals up in red tape and has spawned a 5 billion dollar medical billing industry. That would all be replaced by a single billing standard - saving the system nearly 5 billion dollars per year.

Since there will be one source for insurance, all doctors, hospitals, and specialists will be in the network, resulting in greatly expanded choice for people who otherwise are restricted by HMOs and PPOs.

Everyone will be insured, so there will be no incentive for waiting until the medical condition is in crisis. This will result in far less use of ERs (the most expensive form of care). Thus, ERs will be freed up so they can concentrate on those who really need emergency care. This will result in faster ER responses and billions of dollars in cost savings.

Once insurance companies no longer interfere with yours and your doctors decisions, the quality of care should increase dramatically.

As far as I’ve seen, nobody has mentioned reducing doctor pay. And I hope they never do. But even if they did, it would not result in fewer doctors. Where would they go? It’s not as if they can go anywhere else in the world to get the kind of pay they get here. Even at reduced rates, they still would be the best paid in the world.

Being a doctor will no longer be an economically suitable job. Therefore, med students or med student hopefuls and current doctors will begin to pursue other professions. So people who need medical attention will still pay for it through taxes, and they’ll get a lesser quality of care.

Kind of a lose-lose situation, if you ask me.

And it increases dependency on the government… And it gives illegals, who DON’T pay their taxes, free health care - meaning we get to pay for them if they break a leg, even though they’re here breaking our laws.

Make that a lose-lose-lose-lose situation.

It will just be more people out of work and on the Obama welfare roles if he is able to put public health insurance out of business, like he is trying to. As Obama comes out with more of his spending plans, it is painfully obvious that his goal is to destroy public businesses and cause Americans to be forced out of work and onto his welfare roles.

Nothing would happen. Obama’s plan is an option, not a mandate.
It is only available to those that are not offered health ins. through their employer, or those that can’t afford high cost insurance.

Currently the way we ration health care is via the health insurance industry. Those who can’t afford insurance go without. Those who can afford insurance, have profit motivated employees decided which treatments will be covered.

Medical dollars could be spent much more efficiently without the profit motive. Just as out of business brokers and bankers are now becoming federal bank auditors (from NPR yesterday) so could current health insurance experts move into the government and work FOR the people instead of against them.