Washington Examiner: Republicans from President Trump on down have sought to define Democrats around proposals to extend Medicare to everybody, and conservative writers and activists have joined the pile on.
This is certainly understandable. Even the liberal Urban Institute has pegged the cost of such a program at a staggering $32 trillion over a decade. Any such plan to migrate everybody over to Medicare would mean massive taxes, cause significant disruption to the industry that’s the largest employer in the U.S., as well as disrupt the healthcare arrangements of hundreds of millions of Americans who are currently satisfied with what they have.
Meanwhile, the idea has been endorsed by former President Barack Obama and is supported in the Senate by five potential candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination led by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. For decades, Republicans have accused Democrats of wanting to impose a socialized healthcare system on the U.S., and now many prominent members of the party are openly advocating a proposal that would outlaw private insurance plans offering the same coverage as the government and turn government into the primary financier of everybody’s healthcare.
All of these points need to be made, for sure. But there is a risk that those on the Right will get distracted by attacking the easy target of “Medicare for all,” which despite its fans is still likely a political fantasy in the near-term, and thus allow more practical Democrats to push through policies that are presented as moderate compromises, even though they still represent another radical expansion of the government’s role in healthcare.
Obamacare, once implemented, cost about $2 trillion over a decade, and it was a significant enlargement of the welfare state. If the main focus of Republican attacks in the coming years is on “Medicare for all,” then once they obtain power again, Democrats could advance a bill that is larger in scale and scope than Obamacare, and still make it seem relatively reasonable because it would be far less than the insane $32 trillion price put on the more extreme single-payer.
There is some precedent for this. During the 2008 presidential campaign, leading Democratic candidates made a decision to avoid endorsing a full single-payer plan (even though Obama said it would be his preference if he were starting a system “ from scratch”). Instead, to placate single-payer advocates, they endorsed the idea of a “public option,” which was designed as a way to get to single-payer in a more gradual way. READ MORE
I’m in favor of the “Bernie for NONE” plan myself!
OFF to Canada with ya’ – let THEM, “FEEL the heartBERN!” 🙄
OT
That dumb ass Hoggwild just tweeted, “If some one tells you, you can’t do something, prove them wrong.
So I Tweeted back, “You can’t become a common sense Constitutional Conservative”
Sorry, I crack myself up.
They legalized pot. Isn’t that medicare for all?
Medicare is already the #1 contributor to our debt and eventual collapse. Medicare for all would just accelerate it. Fine, do it. States can break away and new countries will form to replace the USA. Go ahead, socialist kiddies.
If we can’t convince senior citizens to avoid suicide, we don’t deserve to live. If someone doesn’t want to live, BY DESIGN, beyond 75 (estimated healthcare cut off age), jump right in.
Why does AARP need a stamp for my reply?
Take advantage of that self addressed stamped envelope and shred the application form and mail it back to AARP in their postage paid envelope. It worked for me in finally getting them to quit sending me their propaganda after I did it a few times.
Remember all the heated debates we used to have here about how the entirety of Obamacare would be rolled back and axed by the Rs like it had never happened? Remember all those “Just wait…it’ll happen soon, all insurance will go back to the way it was” posts? Those were good times. I miss them.
Just wait until the Left has both the House and the Senate.