Single-Payer Health Care

The Critics of a single-payer health care system, which would expand Medicare to cover everyone, claim to be against rationing health care. Their fear is that some nameless bureaucrats will tell me which doctors I can see, and tell my doctors what to do. In truth that is precisely what we have today. Insurance companies ration health care. Insurance company bureaucrats tell us which doctors we can see and tell our doctors what to do - if we have insurance.

If we don't have insurance, and we're really, really sick, we go to the emergency room. This is an inefficient use of emergency room resources. It is paid for by the people with insurance and the
taxpayers. However, unless you're in a diabetic coma or have just had a heart attack or stroke, the ER is not designed to treat cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, and other chronic illness.

Insurance industry run health care is motivated by the managers of insurance companies to maximize revenues and minimize expenditures. The Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and other conservatives would call this a “Market Failure.” Just as national security operations should not be defined and run by private contractors, health care should not be run by private industry.

Our government, in the words of President Lincoln, is “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” A government run health care system would be motivated by citizens demanding high quality health care for the people.