European-style health care mandates are the latest fringe policies from the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America. Packaged as “Medicare for Ya’ll” and “universal care,” these extreme plans from politicians like James Talarico and Abdul El-Sayed push control of health care to the government and away from patients and their providers.
With Talarico recently walking back some of his more controversial statements, Texans should take a hard look at how he is missing the mark on health care policy and urge him and state politicians to keep radical, European-style health care out of the state House and out of Congress.
We don’t have to look far to know what happens when government takes control of our health care.
The dangers of European-style health care policies are currently playing out across the pond. The National Health Service in England reports that waiting lists for patients have ballooned to over 7 million cases, including patients with serious and life-threatening medical conditions like cancer and heart disease.
Nearly 80,000 patients were removed from the waitlist between 2024 and 2025, not because they received care but because they died.
The promise of improved care simply doesn’t bear out when European-style policies are put into practice, yet Democrats in America are doubling down on more government intervention rather than innovation and reform.
When government boards and committees control health care decisions, there is no free market competition and no incentive to innovate. It takes nearly 20 months in Europe before patients can access a new drug once it is approved.
Why would we import these failed policies to our country?
In 2020, Americans watched as presidential contenders proposed and then abandoned European-style proposals after failing to articulate a clear vision for how the system would be implemented.
Democrats are currently recycling those same bad ideas for the midterms, only this time they are fueled by the socialist craze to force government on every aspect of American life.
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Americans should send a message that a government-controlled health care monopoly is not the answer. Already, bloated government health care programs fuel waste and abuse in the American health care system. The runaway 340B program is the perfect example.
Launched more than 30 years ago as a way to help safety-net providers and hospitals serve low-income patients, the program has gradually ballooned into a revenue stream that allows hospitals to purchase drugs at steep discounts and then charge insurers full price.
The Government Accountability Office has warned about insufficient oversight and improper use among hospital participants. There’s no accountability mechanism to ensure that the savings are used for charity care or passed on to low-income patients. As the program has grown, so has the waste, fraud, and abuse.
The Trump administration has made efforts to tackle the rampant abuse in the system, but Congress needs to act in order to enact lasting change. The Democrat response is more government control and health care expansion, bringing us one step closer to Europe’s harmful health care policies and further away from meaningful reforms.
States must reject attempts to import failed European health policies and government control into our health care system. Texans and Michiganders should push back against the socialist agenda that glorifies waitlists, price controls, and drug rationing over patient care.
We don’t have to look far to know what happens when government takes control of our health care. Americans need to send a clear message during the midterms: Don’t Europe our health care.
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