False Premise False Promise By Sally Pipes

FALSE PREMISE, FALSE PROMISE

The Disastrous Reality of Medicare For All
By Sally Pipes

In her brilliant new book, False Premise, False Promise: The Disastrous Reality of Medicare for All national health care expert Sally Pipes exposes the lies that supporters of Medicare for All love to tell. Their plans won't make Americans healthier, nor is it "free." Medicare for All won't reduce government spending, nor will it make our health care system more efficient. Sally makes a strong case against Medicare for All. Using evidence from government-run systems in Canada and the U.K., she explains how single-payer health care makes a litany of promises it can't possibly keep. 

American health care is at a crossroads. Health spending reached $3.5 trillion in 2017. Yet more than 27 million people remain uninsured. And it's unclear if all that spending is buying higher-quality care. Patients, doctors, insurers, and the government acknowledge that the status quo is unsustainable. The government's failed attempt at health care reform - Obamacare - did not deliver on its promises. Consequently, many low- and middle-income people have been forced into plans with deductibles as high as $12,000. Nearly a decade after its passage, Democrats and especially the Democrat presidential candidates are now calling for a complete government takeover of the health care system (first introduced by Bernie Sanders in 2016) better known as Medicare for All or a stepping-stone approach such as the public option.

In False Premise, False Promise, you'll learn:

·    How the political Left have latched on to Medicare for All mania without being able to spell out exactly how the government would pay for it;

·    That health care is not a RIGHT;

·    About single-payer proposals that are under consideration;

·    About the horrors of socialized medicine around the world - the long waits, shoddy care, and poor outcomes that patients living under government-run health systems must endure; and

·    About an alternative vision for health care reform.

Not one of the supporters of Medicare for All can tell you how they plan to cover the multi-trillion-dollar cost of giving everyone in America "free" government-run health insurance. The increase in federal spending under Medicare for All is $30-40 trillion over ten years according to the Mercatus Center and the Urban Institute. Yet they assert that health care is a RIGHT, promising universal, high-quality care to all Americans at no cost. With a sales pitch like that, it's no wonder the idea has broad support; and Democrats, particularly progressives, hope to capitalize on the public's misguided enthusiasm.

Dissecting the plans under consideration in Congress - including the real costs behind the claims - and detailing the horrors of single-payer care in other countries, Pipes highlights how Americans actually fare better than their peers in Canada and the U.K. on health outcomes. Included are heart-wrenching stories of the human costs of free, universal, government-run health care systems. Pipes concludes with her vision for delivering affordable, accessible, quality care the American people are looking for. The key is less government intervention - not more. [more...]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: SALLY PIPES is President, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy at the Pacific Research Institute, a San Francisco-based think tank founded in 1979.