NPR's Julie Rovner says Len Nichols, an economist with the New America Foundation, made the same point to her recently. Nichols puts the price tag at $1.6 trillion over ten years.

That's .8 percent of GDP over those 10 years. We can cover all Americans for less than one percent of GDP. The question is can we afford to do nothing? And I would argue absolutely not. Because if we don't start changing our health care system, we're gonna spend way more than that in excess cost over time.

Of course, not everyone finds comfort in that context.