No, a European-style health system isn’t the answer

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As candidates for the 2020 Democratic nomination present their visions for “Medicare for all,” politicians on both sides of the aisle are increasingly looking to imitate Europe’s health systems to lower the cost of healthcare. But a European system would come at the cost of lower survival rates, longer wait times, and rationing care — making it a step backwards for American healthcare. While we should be seriously thinking of changing the status quo, these trade-offs require serious consideration.

The cost of healthcare is a problem that just won’t go away on its own. Despite modest achievements by the current administration in recent years, the cost of prescription drugs has skyrocketed over the past decade. Approximately one in ten Americans now rations prescription medication as a way to cope with the price, a strategy that has killed many.

With more than half of Americans worrying about how they will pay for their medical care and prescription drugs, lawmakers are increasingly considering the idea of a European-style single payer system. Candidates for the 2020 Democratic party nomination like senators Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., have all backed the radical creation of a single payer system to increase patient access to healthcare.

Even the Trump administration is basing its ambitions on the fact that drug prices are cheaper across the Atlantic. The proposed plan, an International Price Index, seeks to anchor the price of Medicare Part B drugs to those in 14 European countries, as well as Canada and Japan.

Despite the attractive veneer of cheap prices and easy access, Europe’s socialized health systems fail to match the results that the American system produces. While American patients have access to the latest and most innovative drugs, European governments simply refuse to pay for them, giving European patients no options to access the newest drugs and therapies.

This unwillingness to buy the newest and most expensive drugs shaves years off the lives of sick patients. Despite the challenges of the American health system, Americans have the highest survival rate for cancer across the developed world. While the grass may look greener in Europe, patients certainly don’t live as long when they fall ill overseas.

But Europe’s medical woes include much more than its lack of access to life saving innovation. In Spain, for example, it often takes over six months to receive surgery, while in Sweden some patients have to wait a year for routine heart surgery.

Patients in Britain too often find themselves at the back of a long queue. One in fourteen people in England are currently on a waiting list for medical care, while 25% of people diagnosed with cancer in the UK have to wait at least two months before receiving treatment. In the United States, patients get treatment in less than half of that time.

If American lawmakers really want to find out the unseen emotional costs of a single payer system, they should imagine having to tell someone that they have cancer — but have to wait for months on end before doing something about it.

To make matters worse, many European countries struggle to pay for the healthcare they provide. Despite ploughing more and more tax revenue into Britain’s National Health Service, the UK’s health system consistently runs at a multi-billion dollar deficit. Even as the NHS sells off its assets, 75% of that revenue has been used just to cover day-to-day expenses.

Meanwhile, in Germany, it’s not only patients who are tapping into the single payer system. The country has long battled a wave of prolific fraud where criminals charge the government for fake procedures, costing the public $1.2 billion a year. Despite the differences in healthcare across the European continent, it is clear that single-payer systems have their own pitfalls.

The cost of healthcare and, particularly, prescription drugs in America is a real problem that needs to be addressed. But emulating a European single payer system of failures isn’t the solution. It is true that patients in Europe pay less from their wallet, but they end up paying with years off their lives.

Oliver McPherson-Smith works on economic policy and research for the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit educational and research organization. For more information about the Institute, visit www.TheAmericanConsumer.Org.

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