Medicare for All would bring real, human consequences to state
By: Sally C. Pipes
Special to the
USA Today Network
..... Single-payer care is moving steadily toward the center of the Democratic agenda.
.....
Democratic congressional candidates everywhere from Illinois and Main to New Jersey and Pennsylvania are embracing Medicare for All. More than 100 House Democrats have backed Senator Bernie Sanders' latest proposal, and state-level versions are gaining traction in places like California. representative Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington, recently summed up the mood on the left: "You cannot be too left on health care."
..... If Democrats tale power, that sentiment could become policy.
Yes, there are downsides to Medicare for All
..... Supporters say Medicare for All would guarantee universal, affordable care. But the experience of countries that have adopted single-payer tells a different story - one of delays, rationing an diminished care. When government control health care, they eventually run out of money, time or capacity. Patients don't just wait longer. in some cases, they don't get threated at all.
..... Consider the United Kingdom's National Health Service. Long wait times have plagued the system for years. But recently conditions have worsened.
..... Patient endure months-long delays for specialist care. roughly 30% of patients wait more than two months to start cancer treatment after referral by there general practitioner.
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Hospitals are so strained that care routinely spills into hallways and overcrowded wards. Some 40% of patients wait more than four hours in the emergency department for treatment.
..... Nurses report patients left in severe pain for hours without treatment. In some cases, even those nearing the end of life are left waiting for basic care.
..... "That's a human being, someone in the last hours of their life in the middle of a corridor with a detoxing patient vomiting and bioeng abusive behind them and a very poorly patient in front of them, whoas confused, screaming in pain," one nurse said.
..... Faced with mounting backlogs, health officials have increasingly urged general partitioner to limit referrals to specialists as a way to manage demand. That's tantamount to rationing access to care.
..... In many cases, British health officials simply deny access to care. Less than 60% of medicines launched between 2012 and 2021 were available in the United Kingdom as of October 2022. And only48% were reimbursed by public insurance plans.
..... By contrast, 85% of those novel medicines were available in he United States - and were covered by public insurance.
..... Similar horrors abound in Canada's single-payer system. Patients there face some of the longest wait times in the developed world. The median wait between referral to a specialist by a general practitioner and receipt of treatment eclipsed 28 weeks last year [2025] - roughly seven months.
..... The typical wait for an MRI was more than 18 weeks last year [2025] in Canada. And for an ultrasound? More than five weeks.
..... Yet while timely care is often out of reach, assisted suicide is not. the practice first became legal nearly a decade ago. Medical aid in dying now accounts for roughly one in 20 deaths nationwide. About 45 Canadians per day receive euthanasia, according to the National Post.
..... In some cases, Canadian patients are offered the choice to end their lives before any other treatment options are even mentioned. And yet, this aggressive policy of state-sanctioned killing has done little to address he problem of persistently long treatment delays.
..... These are not isolated incidents. They are the predictable consequences of systems where government control health care budgets and decide how to allocate public resources. Patients wait for care - if they're able to gain access to it at all.
Medicare for all may not have wide public support
..... Polling data indicates that progressives may not have public opinion on their side. More than eight in 10 Americans recently report being satisfied with their coverage. One-third said they were very satisfied.
..... It's unlikely hat they'd endorse outlawing private health insurance coverage - as Medicare for All would.
..... Medicare for All is often presented as a compassionate reform. But the experiences of countries that have already adopted single-payer health care tell a different story - one of delays, denial and diminished care.
..... Sally C. Pipes is president , CEO, and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Helaht Care Policy at the Pacific Research Institute. Follow her on X @sallypipes.