The media typically portray the Democratic Party primary contest as a race between far-left “progressives,” such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and more “moderate” candidates such as Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, and Peter Buttigieg. But this divide reflects stylistic and personality differences more than it does genuine differences in politics and policy.
In truth, the Democratic presidential candidates are all frighteningly progressive or left-wing. They really don’t have any substantive disagreements.
In fact, the one big disagreement that they ostensibly do have—on health insurance, and whether to provide “Medicare for All”(Sanders and Warren) or just “Medicare for All Who Want It” via a “public option” (Biden, Klobuchar, and Buttigieg)—turns out to be a complete ruse.
A so-called public option “would increase the federal deficit dramatically and destabilize the market for private health insurance, threatening health-care quality and choice,” reports Lanhee Chen in today’s Wall Street Journal.
“Some 123 million people—roughly 1 in 3 Americans—he notes, would be enrolled in the public option by 2025, broadly displacing existing insurance.”
In other words, the “public option” is just a more politically palatable way of displacing private-sector health insurance with a “single-payer” government monopoly over time. Sanders and Warren would eliminate private-sector health insurance proudly and openly; Biden, Klobuchar, and Buttigieg would do so more discreetly and stealthily.
But the end result would be the same: a government monopoly on the health insurance market and the elimination of choice and competition in health care.
To progressives who distrust markets and love big government, this might sound good. What’s not to like?! they might say. The problem is that a government monopoly will result in skyrocketing and unsustainable costs and deteriorating healthcare for patients and consumers. Chen explains:
“Many health-care providers would suffer a dramatic drop in income, while at the same time experiencing greater demand for their services.
“Longer wait times and narrower provider networks would likely follow for those enrolled in the public option, harming patients’ health and reducing consumer choice.
“Declines in provider payments would also affect investment decisions by hospitals and may lead to fewer new doctors and other medical providers…
“We estimate that federal spending on the public option would exceed total military spending by 2042 and match combined spending on Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and ACA [the Affordable Care Act or ‘ObamaCare’] subsidies by 2049.
“In the latter year the public option would become the third most expensive government program, behind only Medicare and Social Security. The public option alone would raise the federal debt by 30% of gross domestic product over the next 30 years.”
And good luck with financing this disastrous scheme. Chen estimates that “if tax increases to pay for a politically realistic public option were limited to high-income filers, the top marginal rate would have to rise from the current 37% to 73% in 2049—a level not seen since the 1960s.
“Such large rate increases,” he observes, “would undoubtedly have [adverse] economic effects, causing revenue to fall short of our static estimates.”
In short, there is nothing “moderate” or reasonable about the so-called public option. It is a radical and dangerous idea that will wreak havoc in the health insurance market and lead to the elimination of private-sector health insurance.
America deserves better and American voters deserve the truth about the Democrats now running for president: There’s not a moderate in the bunch. They are all far-left progressives now.
Feature photo/illustration credit: Lydia Zuraw/California Healthline illustration; Getty Images, via California Healthline.
