May 18, 2022

Bernie Brings Back Medicare for All

What better time than during rampant inflation to turn over one-fifth of the economy entirely to the government?

With government spending at an all-time high, inflation running rampant, the Biden administration stuffing Ukraine’s wartime coffers to the tune of $40 billion, and Democrats contemplating spending even more money on relieving thousands of borrowers from paying off their own student loans, Bernie Sanders picked this to be the time to bring back the old chestnut of Medicare for All.

In an op-ed posted at, of all places, Fox News, Sanders told us what we already knew: “The United States has the most dysfunctional, inefficient, bureaucratic and expensive health care system in the world.” That would be the same health system Democrats “fixed” in 2009 with ObamaCare.

Citing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Sanders claims we spend “an unbelievable $12,530 per person for health care.” Actually, we do believe it, but the question is why we spend so much. Sanders, of course, blames insurance company and Big Pharma greed for ratcheting up costs. Then he makes the dubious assertion that “the Congressional Budget Office estimated that Medicare for All would save Americans $650 billion a year.” Even if you take Sanders at his word, though, that will only knock the cost per American down about $2,000. Funny, there was a president a few years back who claimed his healthcare solution would save us about that much, and we see how well that worked.

Indeed, Sanders tacitly acknowledges how well it worked: “Despite this huge expenditure [per person], 30 million Americans have no insurance at all and 112 million struggle to pay for the health care they need.” Ergo, he argues, Congress should pass his Medicare for All Act of 2022 and turn over even more of our healthcare to the same party that screwed it up so badly in 2009.

Once Steven Hayward at Power Line realized that Fox News hadn’t become a satire site by running the Sanders piece, he disassembled most of Sanders’s contention in one sentence: “It is federal regulation that has driven the bureaucratization and cost explosion of health care in both the public and private sector.” We would add only that the states are often right behind the feds with additional mandates in coverage.

Having lived through ObamaCare and its various iterations, such as the “public option” proposal, state-based “exchanges,” and the short-lived boondoggle of “risk corridors,” there’s little doubt that the federal government would mess up the one-car funeral of Medicare for All, too.

John Hinderaker must have heard Hayward laughing, so he piled on with his own assessment of Bernie’s retread proposal, reminding us of how government healthcare works oh-so-well across the pond in the UK, where a new book by a former head of the National Health Service describes a “cover-up culture.” Meanwhile, says Hinderaker, British citizens who need dental work are having a harder time finding dentists because nearly 90% of them won’t accept new patients. That’s our future under Medicare for All.

We’re not going to sit here and tell you that the system we have is perfectly fine, but the tweaks that are required to correct it don’t point it in the direction of more government intervention. The symptoms are right there to see when you visit your doctor’s office and see an entire staff of non-medical professionals whose job is made necessary by the complexity put in place by both the government and private-sector insurance — although the latter is often simply made to conform with the former. In fact, you may see those staffers longer than you see your doctor, who is being forced by the powers that be to rush through patient care in order to keep the business going.

If we can lower that artificial overhead, that would quickly give us a savings we can live with.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.