Could Democrat embrace of single-payer 'hand Trump a second term'?

In a crowded waiting room at the doctor's office yesterday, "welcome to Medicare" was the desk clerk's answer to a patient asking why his visit was not covered.  That was followed by a verbal altercation, complete with F-bombs, over who was next in line to see the desk clerk.

Democrats seem to think Americans want more of this, but President Trump knows that Bernie Sanders's "Medicare for all" is bad medicine, tweeting:

Bernie Sanders is pushing hard for a single payer healthcare plan - a curse on the U.S. & its people[.] ...

I told Republicans to approve healthcare fast or this would happen. But don't worry, I will veto because I love our country & its people.

Even sometime NeverTrump writer David French, at nationalreview.com, thinks the Democratic Party's embrace of single-payer health care on the heels of their Obamacare disaster "could hand Trump a second term":

Sober-minded Democrats should be terrified. They just might be handing Trump two terms. 

While "most of the top Democratic contenders" for the 2020 presidency have signed on to co-sponsor what the New York Post calls the "Dems' new litmus test," otherwise known as "Obamacare on steroids," Mr. French cites several problems for Democrats:

• The tax bill would be "staggering" – one estimate during the Sanders presidential campaign came in at $32 trillion over ten years.  "For now, Sanders is concealing how he'll pay for his bag of goodies," says French, "but any single-payer plan would be crushingly expensive," and voters would soon realize that "'free' health care isn't free."
• The Democrats could no longer "pretend that 'if you like your plan, you can keep your plan,'" adds French.  "By design, more than 100 million of those plans would disappear, to be replaced by one of the world's most immense government bureaucracies."
• And finally, French contends that the move left to single-payer is "symptomatic" of the takeover of the Democratic Party by "the progressive base," which itself "has become too radical for widespread electoral success."

A column at vox.com expands on French's second point:

Under the Sanders plan, private insurance would be outlawed in almost all cases. The 153 million Americans who receive insurance from their employers would lose that coverage – and in its place would receive government insurance[.] ...

The private health insurance industry would all but evaporate, and government insurance would, largely, be the only game in town.

According to vox.com, the latest Sanders bill would get to that state of affairs in stages over four years, enrolling everyone under 18 in the first year and gradually lowering the Medicare "eligibility age" in ten-year increments down from the current 65:

It's not until the fourth year of Sanders's plan that every American would get a "Universal Medicare" insurance card to use for the insurance they need [sic].

Vox.com also notes that the Democrats' rush to single-payer "is a sharp reversal for the party that once relegated the idea to its radical fringe: Just two years ago, Sanders couldn't find a single co-sponsor for his bill."

As preposterous as the Sanders plan sounds, Trump's potential opponents in the 2020 presidential campaign seem to think Americans want more, not less, government in their health care.  The bill's Senate co-sponsors are listed athuffingtonpost.com:

That roster of co-sponsors includes a who's-who list of potential Democratic presidential candidates for 2020, including Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Also backing the bill are Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Al Franken of Minnesota, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall of New Mexico, Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.

Even the liberal huffingtonpost.com says "the likelihood of the Sanders proposal passing in the near future would seem to be vanishingly remote," but that doesn't seem to stop Democrats with presidential aspirations from embracing single-payer health care.

An editorial at washingtonexaminer.com observes:

As Sanders' single-payer bill attracts cosponsors, the port side of the 2020 Democratic primary gets crowded. If they look around, though, Harris, Warren, Booker, and others will realize that most of the country isn't ready to walk this plank with them.

The writer adds that "two thirds of Americans are satisfied" with the health care system.  "Telling Americans you will replace their plan with one run by an even bigger, less responsive bureaucracy, is not going to go over well." 

An even more crowded and less responsive waiting room at the doctor's office is not going to go over well, either.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/09/could_democrat_embrace_of_singlepayer_hand_trump_a_second_term.html

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/09/shifting_to_single_payer_health_care_would_be_a_mess.html

FLASHBACK: Bernie Sanders Says Single-Payer Health Care Would Bankrupt US

Senator Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) "Medicare-For-All" plan he unveiled this week contradicts with statements he made on the topic 30 years ago, as newly-uncovered video shows.

As FoxNews.com reported, Sanders' single-payer health care plan would make - in the democratic socialists' words - healthcare a "right and not a privilege," by shifting the funding responsibilities to the government from the individual.

However, tape from 1987 shows Sanders warning of the fiscal perils that a "Medicare-For-All" plan would bring, as reported by the Washington Free Beacon.

He said that, at the time, he took a look at Canada's national health service, which provides government health care to all Canadians.

http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/09/14/bernie-sanders-single-payer-flashback-1987-medicare-all-health-care-support-2017

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/09/sanders_insists_that_health_care_is_a_right.html