Kerby Anderson

During the last election, health care was a big issue. The major provisions of the Affordable Care Act took place five years ago, and insurance premiums have more than doubled for both individuals and families. The solution proposed by a number of candidates was to move past ObamaCare to Medicare for All. Scott Atlas is a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and has run the numbers. He exposes the “False Promises of Medicare for All” in a recent op-ed. You don’t actually even need to run the numbers. Just look at what is happening in other countries that have a single payer system. First, there is an enormous cost. In order for Britain’s National Health Service to stay afloat, the government must tax its citizens some $160 billion a year. California considered implementing a single payer system until politicians realized it would cost $400 billion a year. That, by the way, is twice the state’s annual budget. In previous commentaries, I have quoted from one study that estimated that Medicare for All in America would cost more than $32 trillion over the first decade. And the same study concluded that doubling the federal income tax and corporate taxes wouldn’t be enough to pay for it. Cost isn’t the only problem with a single payer system. Scott Atlas reminds us “nationalized programs have consistently failed to provide timely, high-quality medical care compared with the US system.” Long waiting lines are typical. England, last year, had a record number of patients in the National Health Service waiting lines. Thousands had been on a waiting list for more than a year after receiving their diagnosis and referral. Also, single payer systems impose long delays before releasing the newest drugs for cancer and other serious diseases. Medicare for all might be a nice slogan, but the enormous cost and the inevitable reduction in timely health care are just a few reasons to reject this false promise.