BLOGSeptember 18, 2017

Bernie Sanders' 'Medicare for All' Is the Blind Leading the Blind

What’s happening?

Sen. Bernie Sanders last week introduced a “Medicare for All” bill. The single-payer health care plan would theoretically expand Medicare, which currently covers senior citizens who have been paying into the system for years, to the entire country in a four-year process.

How is Bernie planning to pay for that?

The plan is estimated to cost $1.38 trillion per year. Sanders listed these sources for funding (read: your money) on his website:

A 6.2 percent income-based health care premium paid by employers.

Estimated revenue: $630 billion per year.

A 2.2 percent income-based premium paid by households.

Estimated revenue: $210 billion per year.

Progressive income tax rates.

Estimated revenue: $110 billion a year.

Glenn’s take:

Sanders calls himself a “Democratic socialist,” a term used by the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin to obscure his communist leanings. This plan for big government health care, which has been co-sponsored by 16 Democratic senators, is only a reflection of that.

In a clip from 1987, Sanders said that expanding Medicaid to a universal health care system would “bankrupt the nation.” The independent senator seemed to know then that American taxpayers can’t afford to fund a single-payer system.

“The reason why he’s avoiding the details now is that he’s very well aware of the costs,” Glenn said.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: You ever heard the saying, you know, the blind following the blind? It's never a good idea because usually you end up in a ditch or off a cliff or something like that, and the bespeckled Bernie Sanders apparently has not heard that. Because he is leading us into a massive pit or off a cliff.

And he knows it.

The independent senator from Vermont who calls himself a democratic socialist, which is weird because that is a term -- look it up, which was coined by Lenin himself. Because Russians were afraid of communists. And so he said, "No, no, we're not communists. No, we're democratic socialists." He has now proposed Medicare for all. A single-payer health care system. It's a plan that would repeal Obamacare and replace it.

Oh, my gosh. The Democrats are going to repeal and replace, with a huge expansion of Medicare, large enough to open the government-run program to all Americans.

Now, this proposal is no longer just a dream to the far left. It enjoys the support of 16 Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kristin Gilderbrand, and Kamala Harris.

Which, why does that list sound familiar? Oh, I remember! Because these are the people that are saying that they might run for president in 2020. Sounds good. But there's even more.

There's a problem with Bernie's proposal. It is lacking in detail. Specifically, the little detail of, how do we pay for this?

But Bernie already knows this.

BERNIE: You want to guarantee that all people have access to health care, as you do in Canada. But I think what we understand that unless we change the funding system and the control mechanisms in this country to do that -- for example, if we expanded Medicaid, everybody -- gave everybody a Medicaid card, we would be spending such an astronomical sum of money that, you know, we would bankrupt the nation.

GLENN: Okay. So wait a minute. Because that's what he's proposing. That, by the way, was Bernie in 1987.

The reason why he's avoiding the details now is because he's very well aware of the costs. In his own words: They're astronomical, and they will -- I want to get this exactly right -- they will bankrupt the nation, end quote.

When the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. Democrats, follow Bernie Sanders at your own peril.