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	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

In their article "Single-Payer National Health Insurance," McCormick and colleagues¹ fail to point out the inherent problems with this type of system, which include detrimental long waits for care, rationing, a slowness to adopt new technology and maintain facilities, and a gigantic bureaucracy that interferes with clinical decision making. Put simply, a single-payer government-run health care system cannot provide the best kind of medical care that Americans expect and now receive.

In addition, this portrayal of a single-payer system is in stark contrast to the reality experienced by physicians who have worked with this type of system in other countries for decades. For example, last summer, the British Medical Association Chairman, Ian G. Bogle, MD, characterized his nation’s single-payer health care system as the stifling of innovation by excessive, intrusive audit . . .

the shackling of doctors by prescribing guidelines, referral guidelines and protocols . . . the suffocation of professional responsibility by target-setting and . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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RELATED ARTICLE

Single-Payer National Health Insurance: Physicians' Views
Danny McCormick, David U. Himmelstein, Steffie Woolhandler, and David H. Bor
Arch Intern Med. 2004;164(3):300-304.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT