Amid all of the craziness of attempted bombings today, an interesting news item had a brief flash on my Apple News app this morning. Vox reported on a report the White House pushed out entitled, “The Opportunity Costs of Socialism” as a retort against single-payer health care. In doing this, they might have actually proved the case for it. Let me explain. Or, rather, let Sarah Kliff from Vox explain. She has written an article today that is entitled, “White House anti-socialism report inadvertently makes a case for single-payer”.
Earlier today, the White House released a paper titled “The Opportunity Costs of Socialism.” Weirdly, it contains a chart that actually makes a pretty decent argument for single-payer health care.
The chart compares wait times for seniors in countries like Canada, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the United States. It purports to show that seniors in single-payer countries wait much longer than those here in the United States.
“White House anti-socialism report inadvertently makes a case for single-payer” by Sarah Kliff Vox.com 10/23/2018
Here is the chart.
You might notice that the United States is at the bottom. This might normally look bad, except the category in this chart is gauging is for longest wait times. This chart says that the United States has the lowest wait times to see a specialist for people who are designated as seniors (over the age of 65 in the U.S.).
One problem with this chart that Sarah points out (and that you might have pointed out to yourself by now) is that seniors are covered by (drumroll, please)….
MedicareYou know, one of the programs that Sen. Mitch McConnell is planning to cut (perhaps as early as the lame-duck session of Congress after the midterms)?
And what is Medicare? It is essentially a single-payer health care program for seniors. It even covers pharmaceuticals (and really well). Ms. Kliff makes the comparison between the Canadian system and ours.
It is true that the Canadian health care system does struggle with wait times. When you read through international research, you routinely see that it has some of the longest wait times in the developed world.
But it is also true that this isn’t a fundamental feature of a single-payer health care system. If you hop across the border and look at our own Medicare program, you see that it’s actually possible to build a single-payer system with short wait times. Most of it just depends on how much you pay doctors; higher pay is going to entice more professionals into the medical space.
The links in that quote contain two separate reports. The first is a Vox article about what Bernie Sanders learned from Canada about single-payer health care and the second one is the report which was cherry-picked by the White House for their report.
Ironic, isn’t it?
There is a lot more to read from this article. Please read and it. Sarah Kliff is a very good reporter regarding health care issues.
White House anti-socialism report inadvertently makes a case for single-payer.