Dr. Jeffrey Singer is a practicing general surgeon in Phoenix, Arizona, and a scholar at the Cato Institute, where he works on health policy studies. He appeared as a guest on The Bob Zadek Show across multiple episodes between 2013 and 2021, discussing the effects of government health-care policy on physicians and patients. Bob Zadek introduced him in 2013 as a general surgeon in Phoenix and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute who had written extensively on the future of health care in America Will Americans Accept Second Class Medicine? (2013). By 2020, Zadek described him as a senior fellow at the Cato Institute studying health policy, and in 2021 as a Cato scholar who had written and spoken extensively on COVID-19 Here comes “the spike…” (2020) Vaccines & the Totalitarian Principle (2021). Singer stated in 2013 that he had been in private practice since 1981 Will Americans Accept Second Class Medicine? (2013).
The vanishing physician entrepreneur
In the 2013 episode “Will Americans Accept Second Class Medicine?”, Zadek framed the discussion around the effect of Obamacare, Medicare, and government intrusions into the marketplace for medicine on doctors rather than patients. He described how these interventions had transformed physicians from independent entrepreneurs into what he called “data entry technicians” and hospital employees. Singer agreed that doctors were “going Galt already,” a reference to Ayn Rand’s novel, and predicted that if the government tried to suppress a two-tiered medical system, the United States Supreme Court would likely rule as the Canadian Supreme Court had—that a person cannot be prevented from using their own means to seek health care nor penalized for providing it Will Americans Accept Second Class Medicine? (2013).
Singer described the case of Dr. Jacques Chaoulli, a family doctor from Quebec who in the late 1990s started a private house-call business and was shut down by the government because he was working outside the public system and charging cash. Chaoulli educated himself in law, sued, lost before the Supreme Court of Quebec, then appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, where he argued his own case in 2005 and won. Singer said the Canadian Supreme Court effectively decriminalized private medicine, ruling that the government could not punish a person for using private means to seek health or for providing it, as that was part of the fundamental right to life. After the decision, cash-only clinics, mini-hospitals, and surgery centers sprang up across Canadian provinces; as of 2011, there were some 300 in British Columbia alone and more in Quebec Will Americans Accept Second Class Medicine? (2013).
The IPAB and rationing through payment
Zadek called the Independent Payment Advisory Board the scariest element of Obamacare. Singer explained that the IPAB was a board of 15 individuals appointed by the President who would review evidence and make recommendations to Medicare, with insurance companies following Medicare’s lead. He said the board would ration care through payment—advising Medicare to drop payment for services it deemed not cost-effective, such as a total hip operation in someone over 70 or dialysis for someone over 65, which he noted is denied to people in England. Singer said the IPAB was being challenged on constitutional grounds because Congress could not overrule its decisions and it was not subject to judicial or congressional review. Zadek added that the statute said a future Congress could not eliminate the IPAB except during a three-month period in 2017 Will Americans Accept Second Class Medicine? (2013).
Singer acknowledged the rationale behind the board’s independence: supporters felt that if it were subject to congressional or judicial review, politicians would ensure that dialysis centers always got paid. He compared its finality to the Grand Inquisitor. Zadek closed the episode by saying that doctors were increasingly becoming employees of hospitals penalized unless they followed evidence-based protocols and benchmarks, and that more doctors were retiring early because they did not want to practice in that world. Singer himself said he planned to retire ahead of schedule because he loved medicine too much to be part of it Will Americans Accept Second Class Medicine? (2013).
COVID-19 and executive decision-making
In the 2020 episode “Here comes ‘the spike…’”, Zadek introduced Singer as a practicing general surgeon in Phoenix and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Zadek framed the discussion around executive decision-making, comparing the responsibilities of a family member, a business owner, and a mayor to those of the executive branch during the pandemic. He asked Singer to critique how the executive branch at the city, state, and federal levels performed, noting that the legislative branch had ceded power to the executive Here comes “the spike…” (2020).
In the 2021 episode “Vaccines & the Totalitarian Principle,” Zadek introduced Singer as perhaps the most knowledgeable physician in America on COVID and a Cato scholar who had written and spoken extensively on the subject. Singer demurred, saying he would not claim to know more about COVID than any other physician but that he had spent a great deal of time studying the matter as both a practicing physician and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Zadek observed that for the past year, medical advice about the pandemic had come almost exclusively from politicians rather than from physicians, and he asked Singer to rate the quality of that advice Vaccines & the Totalitarian Principle (2021).
Across episodes
Singer appeared in at least four episodes spanning 2013 to 2021. In the 2013 episode, the focus was on how government health-care policy was destroying private practice and driving doctors to leave the system, with Singer describing the Canadian experience as a model for how a private market might re-emerge. In the 2020 and 2021 episodes, the topic shifted to the COVID-19 pandemic and the quality of executive-branch decision-making, with Zadek framing the discussion around the executive branch’s performance and the absence of physician input in public health advice. The excerpts show a consistent concern with centralized health-care decision-making, but the specific question changed from the structure of Obamacare and Medicare to the pandemic response. No excerpt shows Singer’s own detailed critique in the 2020 episode, as the transcript breaks off before his answer Here comes “the spike…” (2020).
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state Singer’s age, birthplace, medical school, or the name of his practice. They do not describe his family, his publications beyond general references to his writing, or the specific content of his Cato Institute work beyond health policy studies. The 2014 episode “How the Free Market Will Save the Planet” mentions Singer only in Zadek’s closing remarks, where Zadek says he will be back next Sunday with Jeffrey Singer, described as a practicing physician who knows Obamacare from the inside out; the episode itself features a different guest, David, and does not include Singer’s participation How the Free Market Will Save the Planet (2014). The excerpts also do not state the outcome of any constitutional challenge to the IPAB or the specific provisions of any bill.
Episodes
3 appearances, 2013–2022.
- Will Americans Accept Second Class Medicine? (2013) — The systematic destruction of private medical practice. General Surgeon and Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute
- Vaccines & the Totalitarian Principle (2021) — Medical and political response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Cato Institute senior fellow and surgeon
- Fresh Approaches to the Overdose Crisis (2022) — Government interference and the opioid overdose crisis. Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute