questions. and in just a few minutes live from savannah, a conversation about harvard university's class of 1963 that graduated 18 african-americans including our next author, kent garrett. stay tuned for more from georgia in just a moment. while we wait for the next author event to begin, we want to show you a portion of this weekend's "after words" program. pacific research institute's sally pipes offers her thoughts on health care reform. >> host: now, you're from canada. you've mentioned that a number of times. being a canadian native, you've seen it firsthand. you've seen government-run health care. >> guest: i grew up under it. the federal government fully

took over the canadian health care system in 1984. no private coverage is allowed for anything considered medically necessary. most things are medically necessary in health care. a couple of things that aren't, cosmetic surgery if i want to make myself look younger, better, lasik surgery for your eyes. the prices have gone down, not gone up because the government isn't involved. in canada in '84 the government took over. i worked at the frazier institute where we started a project called waiting your turn: a guide to hospital waiting lists. and in 1993, the first year, the average wait time from seeing a primary care doctor to getting treatment by a specialist, in 1993 that wait was 9.3 weeks, just over two months. today -- last year, 2019, the average wait time had increased to 20.9 weeks.

that's over five months. and 608,000 canadians cross the border every year and pay out of pocket for getting mris, ct scans, orthopedic surgeries, hip replacements, heart, you know, valve replacements, things like that because they feel that their health is too important to have to wait so long. canadians have an escape valve. if we as the government say where are we going to go, dr. tom price and others will have to be practicing offshore so that we can continue to get the very best in medicine. but the american people demand, you know, my -- america is a very wealthy country, and my mom used to say i hope you're not becoming one of those impatient americans which, of course, i am now. but canadians and brits when the doctor says, well, i'm sorry, you know, ms. pipes, you're not going to be able to get an appointment with, you know, to get a colonoscopy for eight months to a year, canadians are,

well, fine, that'll be nice. a lot of people, they're just so polite, and they don't know anything different because most people growing up have grown up under single-payer. it started slowly and finally was all in in 1984. >> host: so there are a number of proposals out there, and thus far we've talked primarily about the sanders and joy fall proposals. >> guest: nothing, there's no private coverage for anything considered medically necessary, which is the majority of things. you can get private insurance for like if you're a canadian and you want to come to the u.s. on vacation, you're afraid if you get sick, of course, the canadian government what they pay would to not cover any of the costs here. so people get private coverage for traveling, they'll get private coverage for having a private room in a hospital because that's not part of the system. an ambulance going to the hospital, things like that.

but bernie sanders' plan is even more comprehensive than the canadians'. i say over five weeks' wait for seeing a primary dance to a specialist. the average wait in canada is 33 weeks. we have 16 mri machines versus 144 in the u.s. -- 44 in the u.s. it's really ridiculous. but bernie wants to add free eye care, free dental care, free drugs, free long-term care. so when charles playhouse says, you know -- heys says 30 to 40 years for bernie's plan, he told norah o'donnell on cbs evening news friday i just don't know how much my plans are going to cost. he's backed away from that. but he knows it's going to be very, very expensive. and as we just saw today, the increase in the federal deficit under bernie's plan would go up

$20 trillion over ten years at the high end. so it's, you know, if you add more than -- canada tried to bring in free drugs several years ago under a liberal prime minister, and he found out that it was so expensive that they just couldn't afford to do it. so bernie wants to make it, our system even more comprehensive and no refurls to a specialist. you have -- referrals to a specialist. the demand for health care will far exceed the supply of health care that can be given, and that's why i think even that $30-40 trillion increase in federal spending other ten years is probably on the low side. >> host: probably the two most prominent examples, if you will, of the medicare for all system are canada and the u.k. >> guest: right. >> host: and there are other countries that have it. now, as i understand it in canada and in the united kingdom, you all, you till have an out of pocket commit, an out of pocket responsibility. as well as in denmark, norway and finland. there still are some out of

pocket expenses that you have responsibility for. >> host: right, exactly. and so canada is one of three countries in the world that has a true single-payer health care system. the other two are cuba and north korea. so think about what kind of health care you get in those countries. [laughter] the united kingdom has what we call universal coverage system. the nhs, national health service, brought it in 1971. it covers about 90% of brits. they allow private coverage to run parallel and about 10% of brits have private coverage from, in some of the companies that are in the u.k. are american companies like the blue cross company and there's a british. but this is becoming more popular because just in december there were over four million brits on a waiting list to get treatment. and the cancer treatment is not supposed to be delayed from seeing a general practitioner to getting treatment more than 62 days. they haven't met in the u.k. that standard for over five

years. and more important under the world health organization study, brits are the bottom of the rung in most industrialized countries in all forms of cancer survival rates five years out. that tells you something about life expectancy with cancer under a government, basically a government-controlled system. >> you mentioned just a few minutes ago and it's, obviously, a big concern, how much is this going to cost? i mean, you know, absolute figures $32 trillion over ten years? trillion. >> guest: yes, trillion. not million or billion. exactly. and as i say, charles said that would even include if they had some reduce administrative costs and some reduced drug costs. so that would be the increase in federal spending over ten years. but what would be the total cost of the plan, it would be somewhere $60 trillion over ten years. and it won't be free. taxes will have to go up.

sanders has said there'd have to be a new 4% income tax on anyone earning over $29,000 a year. that is very little income in this country and would hit a lot of people. there'd be a new 7.5% payroll tax. elizabeth warren said, well, the payroll tax is not paid by middle class people because, remember, her plan wouldn't increase taxes on anyone in the middle class. but she doesn't realize that people who pay the tax are employees and they are, for the most part, middle class. there would be new taxes on large financial institutions. i mean, as bla house said, if you troubled all the personal income taxes in this country, it wouldn't be enough to cover this plan. so taxes would have to go up even further x. as i say, it won't be free because you're going to be facing all these taxes, and it's not free because you're in pain and can't work, there's a cost to having your pay rationed and not being able to get access to timely care. >> watch the full "after words"

interview between sally pipes and republican congressman buddy carter of georgia tonight at 10 p.m. eastern. [inaudible conversations] >> and starting now live from the savannah book festival, here's kent garrett and jeannie ellsworth on harvard university's graduating class of 1963 that included 18 african-american men that were recruited to the school as an early step in affirmative action. [inaudible conversations]