False Promises: What Single-Payer Fails to Deliver

Published July 27, 2020

Though many believe socialized medicine will keep health care costs low, single-payer systems rarely deliver on their promises. Compare, for example, the availability of new cancer drugs in America with that in European countries with single-payer health care. Free markets have fewer restrictions than socialized medicine does, leading to more rapid adoption and better health outcomes.

Discussion Questions:

1. What does single-payer health care promise? What does it deliver?
2. How can we improve health care coverage without moving to a single-payer system?

Additional Resources:

• Read “The Costs of Regulation and Centralization in Health Care” by Scott Atlas. Available here.
• Read “The Fraud of Single-Payer Health Care” by Scott Atlas via the Washington Times. Available here.
• Read “Single-Payer Health Care,” a Policy Insights edition on PolicyEd. Available here.