What Every American Needs To Know About Socialized Medicine by Sue A. Blevins @ (NAPSA)—Once again, the debate over socialized medicine is heating up across the country. And if Americans want to see how single-payer health care would really operate in the U.S., they need only look at the imploding Medicare system. If history is any indication, socialized medicine would end up costing much more than initially projected. Here’s why: In 1965 (the year Medicare was enacted), the federal government’s lead actuary projected that Medicare part A (the hospital program) would grow to only $9 billion by 1990. The program ended up costing more than $66 billion in 1990. In terms of spending, today’s U.S. Medicare program is the largest single-payer health program in the world! Total program costs amounted to $408 billion in 2006, and intermediate projections show that spending will double to more than $862 billion annually by 2016. Also, the single-payer Medicare program denies millions of claims annually. For example, Medicare denied over 158 million claims in 2004. Do Americans really want higher health care costs and denied care? Based on empirical evidence from the Medicare program, that’s what they’d get under single-payer health care. For more information about Medicare’s effects on health care choices and costs, visit www.ForHealthFreedom.org. e Ms. Blevins is president of the Institute for Health Free- dom in Washington, D.C.
