As the political drumbeat for single-payer health care rises in Sacramento, other states around the country, and in Washington, DC, PRI’s Sally Pipes today released a new book that makes the case for why single-payer health care would be a disaster for all Americans, The False Promise of Single-Payer Health Care.
“Support for single-payer health care is on the rise – two-thirds of Democrats and even one-quarter of Republicans favor it in opinion polls,” said Pipes. “As I know first hand from my native Canada, single-payer health care would be a disaster for American health care – threatening quality care for patients and leading to long waiting lists for care, rationed care, and massive taxes. My new book exposes the false promise of single-payer and gives those fighting to preserve market-based health care the facts and anecdotes they need to win the debate.”
In her new Encounter Broadside, Pipes makes the case against single-payer by offering evidence of its devastating effects on patients in Canada, the United Kingdom, and even the United States. Her latest book comes at a time when the political forces pushing single-payer health care are gaining support.
Will Imbrie-Moore recently wrote in the Harvard Political Review that, “Five years ago, a single payer or Medicare for All model in the U.S. was considered a pipe dream by all but the most progressive voters. Today, half of all Americans, almost two-thirds of Democrats, 15 U.S. Democratic Senators, and the majority of Democratic House members support the plan. Although the idea is young, it has taken a long and arduous political path to popularity.”
In an article from the American Action Forum headed by former Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Holtz-Eakin recently reported that, “progressive politicians and advocacy groups have made a single payer health care system a major policy objective for the next two to four years. Those of us who believe that market forces and private innovation lead to the best outcomes should take this effort seriously.” Pipes says her book is part of that effort to educate the American people on the dangers of a complete government takeover of our health care system.
“Now more than ever, Americans must set aside the rosy promises and see for themselves what a single-payer health care system would mean for them and their families if enacted,” Pipes said. “My new book shows just what Americans would have in store for them – longer wait times from seeing a primary care doctors to treatment by a specialist (21.2 weeks in Canada in 2017), fewer doctors practicing medicine, the best and the brightest students not going into medicine, reduced quality of care, less medical innovation, and massive tax increases to pay for it.”
Sally C. Pipes is the president, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy at the Pacific Research Institute. One of the nation’s most prolific single-payer opponents, Pipes has written and spoken extensively on single-payer, and last year debated Senate President pro Tem Kevin de León – California’s leading single-payer proponent – at an NPR event in Southern California. She writes bi-weekly columns for Forbes.com, Investor’s Business Daily, and for the Washington Examiner’s “Beltway Confidential” blog.
The False Promise of Single-Payer Health Care is being released today by Encounter Books. It is available for purchase here at Amazon.com, and through other book retailers.
Listen to Sally Pipes talk about her book.
