ALEXANDRIA, VA, May 12, 2022 – The Coalition Against Socialized Medicine (CASM), a broad coalition of leading conservative and free-market groups such as the Conservative Political Action Coalition, Heritage Action, FreedomWorks, the National Taxpayers Union, Club for Growth, Citizens Against Government Waste, American Commitment, and the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, has issued the following statement on the Senate Budget’s latest hearing, “Medicare for All: Protecting Health, Saving Lives, Saving Money,” attributable to CPAC Executive Vice President Dan Schneider:

Democrats simply will not let the toxic idea of Medicare for All go. In yet another attempt to convince American taxpayers, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sen. Bernie Sanders made various incorrect claims that a socialist-style healthcare system would save lives and save money.

Here are the facts: Medicare for All, the so-called public “option” and other market-distorting price control schemes would lead to the elimination of the private insurance millions of American patients and families depend on, impose crushing new taxes on everyone, including the middle class, increase wait times for critical treatments and surgeries, and stifle innovation costing dozens of new cures over the next few decades.

Nearly three-quarters of Americans would be worse off under a government-run universal health care system. We have seen wait times skyrocket in other countries with government-run healthcare systems and America would also face these same severe medical professional shortages. This would lead to wait times for an inpatient hospital bed creeping up to over 16 hours. The wait for treatment would be even worse – with 15 percent of patients waiting for over 18 weeks and cancer patients waiting two months. As we come out of a pandemic, hindering patients’ abilities to access necessary medical attention would be catastrophic.

Previous iterations of Sanders’s Medicare-for-All plan were estimated to cost $32 trillion and also lead to immediate funding cuts of about 40 percent to hospitals and 30 percent to doctors treating patients under private insurance. To pay for such a bloated and inefficient government program, all workers would pay a 21.2 percent payroll tax on top of the taxes they already pay.

American taxpayers would be crushed by these huge tax increases. During this challenging economic period with stifling inflation brought about by too much government spending, no taxpayers should have their taxes increased when they are struggling to pay for food and gas.