Monday, September 18, 2017

The Democratic Push for Single-Payer Could Hand Trump a Second Term

The National Review ^ | September 13, 2017 | David French 

Americans are not prepared to take big chunks out of their paychecks for socialized medicine, and they’re not keen to move far left.


Today is single-payer day. Bernie Sanders is introducing the Medicare for All Act of 2017, and this time he’s no lone socialist crying in the progressive wilderness. A total of 15 Democratic senators are backing his bill, including most of the top Democratic contenders for the presidency. As the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake observed yesterday, “The dam is breaking.” The New Republic, among others, is even arguing that single-payer is becoming the newest “litmus test” for the party’s presidential hopefuls, and given the speed with which the far Left transforms fringe ideas into moral mandates, I’m not surprised.
Sober-minded Democrats should be terrified. They just might be handing Trump two terms. There are three reasons why. First, and most obviously, single-payer health care comes with an extraordinary tax bill. The very instant voters saw their take-home pay plunge — often by an amount that far exceeds their traditional employee contribution to their employer-provided insurance — they would realize that “free” health care isn’t free. For now, Sanders is concealing how he’ll pay for his bag of goodies, but any single-payer plan would be crushingly expensive. Here’s the Washington Post editorial board, on June 18 this year, describing the costs.....
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...

T-Shirt