by Paul Bradford
The murder of United Healthcare’s CEO has fueled calls for single-payer, but government intervention—not private insurance—is the true cause of America’s healthcare woes.
The murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson inspired many voices on the left to demand the government take control of healthcare. Prominent Democrats such as Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tried to excuse the killing with claims that the anger towards private health insurance is warranted.
“I think what we need to ask ourselves when we talk about health care is why we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all people,” Sanders said in the wake of the assassination. The leftists want to exploit the moment to advance single-payer, allowing the government to control healthcare completely.
It shouldn’t be surprising that Bernie Sanders and AOC champion this idea. But there are others who want to use this situation to push for more government control. One such voice is former Cigna executive Wendell Potter. Potter recently published an op-ed in the New York Times denouncing private health insurance and praising government intervention. He believes the answer is “Medicare for all” and led a group with this as its stated mission.
Bernie and co. may feel emboldened by the support for their proposals. But no matter who claims the government is the answer to healthcare, it’s not. In fact, the government is responsible for much of our healthcare woes.
Americans hate the high costs, limited options, long wait times, insurance haggling, and variable quality of our healthcare system. They should look at who made it this way.
The federal government limits consumer choice and increases prices. As the Heritage Foundation explains:
[F]ederal and state government policies have contributed to the increasing consolidation of health care markets among health insurers and hospital systems, reducing the number of independent medical practices, restricting patient choices and thus driving up consumer costs. In sharp contrast to other sectors of America’s more open market economy, there is far too little price transparency in health care; consumers and patients often do not know the price of medical goods and services until the mysterious bill arrives.
Government policy drives down quality of care, according to the Cato Institute:
[G]overnment health programs literally pay producers not to improve quality.
For at least two decades, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has warned that in traditional Medicare, “providers are paid even more when quality is worse, such as when complications occur as the result of error.” One study found that when patients experience post-operative complications, Medicare ends up doubling hospitals’ net revenues from $1,880 to $3,629. Medicare rules reward private insurers for skimping on care to the sick.
Medicare’s quality-improvement efforts consistently fail to improve quality. A study of Medicare’s Hospital Value-Based Purchasing program found that “in no subgroups of hospitals was HVBP associated with better outcomes, including poor performers at baseline.” Medicare’s attempt to reduce unnecessary hospital readmissions likewise had zero effect on patient outcomes.
The same culprit is responsible for long wait times, per the Wall Street Journal:
Start with the reality that Medicare and Medicaid, two government programs, cover about 36% of Americans. Both pay doctors and hospitals below the cost of providing care. As a result, many providers won’t see Medicaid patients, resulting in delayed care. A 2023 state audit of California’s Medicaid program found 43% of appointments for urgent psychiatric care for children exceeded the state’s four-day standard.
A 2019 meta-analysis of state Medicaid program audits by Yale researchers found that low-income patients were 3.3 times less likely to get an appointment to see a specialist than someone with private insurance. Another 2022 study by Yale doctors found that Medicaid patients had significantly less access to the highest-performing cancer hospitals.
Obamacare, the last major government intervention in healthcare, made the whole industry worse and more expensive. In just a few years after taking effect, the “Affordable Care Act” doubled the cost of individual premiums.
Single-payer advocates like Potter might tout the glories of Canada’s system but then ignore the tens of thousands of Canadians who travel to the U.S. every year for medical treatment. Our care is still better than that of our more socialist-inclined neighbor.
Americans are right to be frustrated with our healthcare system, but Bernie Sanders and his allies offer the wrong solutions and the wrong people to blame. Our healthcare would be a lot better if leftists stopped trying to make it “better” through government intervention. They’ve been proven to only make it worse.
Paul Bradford
Source: https://amgreatness.com/2025/01/12/more-government-is-not-the-answer-to-americas-healthcare-woes/
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