Kamala Harris is determined to hide her long record of supporting Medicare for All

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is running away from her primary support for Medicare for All.

It makes sense: A new public opinion poll shows that’s not what voters want.

Only 37% of likely voters support a federal takeover of health insurance and a similar ban on health insurance, according to a survey conducted by Echelon Insights and sponsored by the Pacific Research Institute .

And support for such a one-man system is falling, dropping three percent by 2023.

On the other hand, 91% of insurance voters are satisfied with their current plan.

That number has increased for three consecutive years.

Nine out of 10 people with insurance must pay close attention not only to what Harris & co. they talk about health care now, but what they talked about in the past.

They won’t like what they hear.

In 2019, during her first presidential campaign, Kamala Harris released her single-person health care plan.

As a U.S. senator, he supported the extraordinary claims of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for Medicare for All in 2017 and 2019.

“It’s the right thing to do,” Harris said in 2017.

Two years later, when asked if he supported banning private insurance, Harris replied, “Let’s get rid of all that. Let’s continue.

Harris’ supporters say he has changed his mind, and a soft-spoken press has welcomed them.

But as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) recently asked, “How do you know that’s not his situation now?”

“He hasn’t said that,” Cotton told host Jonathan Karl of ABC’s “This Week.” “He takes this effort not to change these conditions, but to hide these conditions.”

Polling data suggests it is smart politics.

Majorities across the political spectrum — three-quarters of Republicans, nearly six in 10 Democrats, and two-thirds of voters overall — believe that health care should empower doctors and patients to make the system more competitive, not to give more power to the federal government. , according to Echelon research.

Perhaps those numbers should not be surprising, given what government-run health care has provided in other parts of the world.

Across our northern border, Canadians face wait times of more than 27 weeks — more than six months — for treatment from a specialist after being referred by a general practitioner, according to Fraser Institute, a Canadian think tank.

That’s nearly three times the wait in 1993, when Fraser began tracking wait times.

By 2022, the Angus Reid Center found that nearly 13 million Canadian adults, or 41%, reported difficulty or inability to access emergency care, non-emergency care, diagnostic testing , surgery or specialist meeting.

The average family of four in Canada pays about $18,000 a year in taxes for government-sponsored health coverage, Fraser estimated this month — but all those taxes seem to buy more over time. long and inappropriate care.

In short, the “Canadian health care” system does not work everywhere.

Meanwhile, a health care crisis hit Great Britain this year as labor shortages were exacerbated by strikes.

More than 7.6 million people were waiting for hospital treatment from the National Health Service as of May.

In 1983, the British Social Attitudes survey began to measure citizens’ views on British life, including their medical experience.

Last year, a record low 24% of those polled said they were satisfied with the NHS.

Waiting times, understaffing and inadequate government spending were cited as major concerns.

This is what a broken health care system looks like.

Kamala Harris and many of her fellow Democrats have a long record of supporting a government takeover of the US health insurance system.

Many Americans who are satisfied with their health care arrangements — and those who do not want to see Canadian or European health services exported — should keep that report in mind when they go to the polls this fall. .

Sally C. Pipes is president, CEO and Thomas W. Smith health care policy partner at Pacific Research Institute. His latest book is “False Premise, False Promise: The Dangerous Truth of Medicare for All” (2020 meeting).