Bernie's Big Fat, Health Plan

Pore ol;' Bernie.  You gotta feel sorry for him.  An aging socialist who lost the Democratic nomination to the very worst candidate ever put forward by a major party, he did ride a wave of populist enthusiasm until the wave battered itself against the shore of the voting booth.  It was his high-water mark, and he should savor it and slip gracefully into retirement.

He's unable to do that , though, because he likes the attention, and his followers are gullible.  They want free stuff, and Bernie wants to provide it in the form of "Medicare For All."  It sounds great from the podium, but when you put the numbers together, it sucks. 

The Sanders bill would add hundreds of millions of people into an already financially-strapped program while making it more generous — within four years. At no point in the legislation does he describe how he would expect to pay for this ambitious idea or deal with massive disruption it would mean for businesses, workers, and those trying to access care.

The problem is, that Americans like free stuff, and a politician who will give them free stuff..  Bernie could just as easily promised "forty acres and a mule", or "a chicken in every pot".  But, those two populist canards have been used for too long.  I guess he needed to come up with something new, so Universal Health Care is the latest rallying cry.  I'm surprised that otherwise intelligent people fall for it.

I know that we have problems in health care.  Americans spend about 17% of GDP on healthcare, probably more than any other developed nation.  Bernie supporters tout Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand as examples of universal health care, but if you look closely at those countries, they all have problems.  It's not pie-in-the-sky.  It's witchcraft economics, and one of these days we are going to run out of other people's money.

Bernie Sanders represents the very worst of American politics.  Populism has been decried for generations, but Americans still fall for it.