Bernie's Plan

If you've been alive for the past decade, you know about Bernie Sanders, the aging socialist from Vermont who wants single-payer health insurance for everyone.  He claims it will save trillions, and the pie-in-the-sky is amazing.

All we have to do is:

• Force every doctor and hospital in America to accept Medicare reimbursement rates for all patients — these are 40 percent lower than the rates paid by private insurance — while assuming that this would have absolutely no effect on their capacity or willingness to provide services

 • Raise taxes by 10 percent of GDP — overnight

• Explain to the 150 million people with private insurance that the rules have been changed so dramatically that (a) they can no longer keep their plans, and (b) henceforth, tens of millions among them will be paying more in taxes than they were previously paying in both premiums and out-of-pocket costs

 Hey, disrupt everyone's medical plans, increase taxes, and piss off millions of people.  That sounds like a plan that Bernie should run on.

It's like I explain to my Democratic friends; if you want single-payer, look at the staggering success of the VA system in the US.  That's what single-payer looks like.