Study: Medicare for All Would Save 114k Lives Yearly — and Save $1T in Costs

“This study confirms what we have known for years: Medicare for All saves lives and saves money,” said Bernie Sanders.

By Sharon Zhang , Truthout

A new study has found that Medicare for All would save over 100,000 lives in the U.S. per year while also reducing Americans’ health care spending by more than $1 trillion annually.

Yale University and University of Maryland researchers have estimated that the universal single payer health care system introduced in the Medicare for All Act would prevent 114,000 deaths per year.

Over half of lives saved would be of Americans who are currently underinsured or uninsured, and another 20,000 would be from the 14 million Americans who are slated to lose their insurance due to Republicans’ Big Beautiful Bill, the researchers found. Medicare for All would additionally save another 21,000 lives of seniors who can’t afford their prescription drugs or quality nursing home care.

One of the most common criticisms levied against Medicare for All is the cost. However, the research reiterated previous findings that the program would actually dramatically reduce health care spending.

The researchers found that a universal, single payer system would actually reduce the U.S.’s overall spending by over $1 trillion yearly. This is a reduction of nearly 20 percent from the U.S.’s health expenditure in 2024 of $5.3 billion.

These savings are driven by “reductions in administrative overhead, pharmaceutical prices, fraudulent billing, and avoidable emergency care,” the study finds.

“Our findings indicate that the principal barrier to universal coverage in the USA is not the absence of resources, but their allocation,” the researchers wrote.

The study was published as a preprint, meaning that it has not yet been peer reviewed or formally published in a paper. However, its findings line up with other research showing that the U.S. spends the most on health care of any other wealthy country by far, while also having some of the worst health outcomes, like lower life expectancy at birth than any other country that already has universal health care.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), the author of the Medicare for All Act, touted the results of the study in a statement.

“This study confirms what we have known for years: Medicare for All saves lives and saves money,” Sanders said on Tuesday. “It would save working families thousands of dollars a year.”

“At a time when 15 million Americans are being thrown off the healthcare they have and 20 million Americans have already seen their premiums double, on average, as a result of Trump’s so-called ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ we need Medicare for All now more than ever. The time is now to end the greed of the big insurance and drug companies and pass Medicare for All,” he went on.

Medicare for All has long been a demand of the progressive left. The idea has recently gained momentum once again as a central plank of Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign for Senate.