News Release

January 27, 2005

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National health insurance myths debunked
Study questions wisdom of advocating greater government provision of health care

WASHINGTON -- As Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), John Kerry (D-Mass.), and other prominent supporters of government provision of health care discuss their plans in Washington today, a Cato study suggests Democratic party leaders should steer clear of such schemes. Data from foreign governments with such systems contradict many of the claims made about national health insurance by its supporters in the United States.

In "Health Care in a Free Society: Rebutting the Myths of National Health Insurance," National Center for Policy Analysis president John C. Goodman writes that wherever national health insurance has been tried, it produces results at odds with its proponents' promises of equal access to high-quality medical care.

In national health care systems, "rationing by waiting is pervasive, putting patients at risk and keeping them in pain," Goodman writes. "Access to health care in single-payer systems is far from equitable; in fact, it often correlates with income." For example, Goodman found that:

• No country with national health insurance has established a right to health care, or equal access to care. The elderly in Canada and the U.K. report much more difficulty obtaining care than U.S. seniors, while racial health disparities persist. "New Zealand's guidelines for end state renal failure programs say that age should not be the sole factor in determining eligibility, but that 'in usual circumstances, people over 75 should not be accepted.' Since New Zealand has no private dialysis facilities, this amounts to a death sentence for elderly patients with kidney failure."



• The quality of medical care in the United States is typically higher than in other nations. The United States has lower breast and prostate cancer mortality rates than New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, France and Australia.



• "Patients in government-run health care systems do not get more preventive care than Americans do. ... The amount of preventive care people get under single-payer systems seems to be based more on socio-economic status and education than on whether medical care is 'free' or not."



• A comparison of Britain's National Health Service and Kaiser Permanente in California found that "Kaiser provided its members with more comprehensive and convenient primary care services and much more rapid access to specialists and hospital admissions" for roughly the same cost per capita, Goodman writes.

"Advocates of national health insurance would do well to look at how countries like Germany, Sweden and Australia are choosing free-market reforms to alleviate the problems of their national health systems," Goodman concludes. "Through painful experience, many of the countries that once heralded the benefits of government control have learned that the best remedy for their countries' health care crises is not increasing government power, but increasing patient power instead."

Policy Analysis no. 532