The Hill has a piece about the move by many democrats, led by independent socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, to make a Single Payer health care plan the centerpiece of their drive to take back the House and Senate in 2018 and then the White House in 2020. The Democrats are pretty sure that “Medicaid for All” will be their ticket back to power. Republicans are equally sure that the scheme will be the pathway for their opponents to be in the wilderness for the next generation.
Why do Democrats like government health care?
So far, of the possible candidates for president, Sen.
Kamala Harris, D-California has been the only one who has promised to support the Sanders bill. However, virtually every other Democrat, whether they want to run for president or not, is at least in sympathy with the approach. The reason is, they have always favored government control of health care, dating back to the beginning of the progressive era in the early 1900s. Health care should be a right and the only way to guarantee it is a government takeover. European countries and Canada have such systems, why not the United States? Besides, having the profit motive in the delivery of health care is inherently evil.
The Republicans are eager to engage in the debate
Republicans, on the other hand, are pinching themselves wondering how they have stumbled upon this good fortune.
What Obamacare proved, above all, the move government is involved in health care the more trouble that arises.
Single payer health care is too expensive. Sanders’ home state of Vermont considered such a scheme and rejected it. Kamala Harris’ California almost passed government health care and ultimately passed on because of its enormous cost.
One study of Sanders’ Medicaid for All suggested that it would add $32 trillion to the deficit over the next ten years. Single payer might as well be magic unicorns for all its impracticability.
Government run health care is inherently evil. It has caused waiting lists and health care rationing in Canada. Great Britain’s National Health Service kills people to cut costs and to ensure that the British people understand who is in charge of life and death.
Ask Charlie Gard’s parents. Ask anyone who had an elder relative done away with under the Liverpool Pathway. President Obama once sneered at people who “cling to their God and their guns.” They will more fervently cling to their lives.
The trick is to counter the siren song of the Democrats that single payer means that everyone gets treated for everything and the cost will be nominal. Republicans also have to offer an alternative, one that relies more on a free market and innovation to contain cost and enhance the availability and quality of care.
