Why the DSAs Medicare-for-All dream threatens us with a real-life nightmare

Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan is building his US Senate campaign on Medicare for All, promising health care coverage for all Americans “cradle-to-grave.”In Minnesota, Democratic Senate nominee Peggy Flanagan has likewise made Medicare for All a central plank of her progressive platform.In New York, more than 100 state lawmakers have co-sponsored legislation to establish a statewide single-payer system.Single-payer health care is back on the political agenda, pushed by Democratic Socialists and their leftist allies as the answer to Americans’ frustrations with private medical insurers.But while excoriating insurance companies may be good politics, forcing everyone into a government insurance monopoly would be disastrous policy.Today’s insurance market has flaws, granted — but at least Americans aren’t trapped.Employers can move their workers to a different insurer; those who buy their own coverage can compare competing plans and switch during open enrollment.Even Medicare beneficiaries — whose coverage is financed by the federal government — still enjoy real choices.They can enroll in traditional Medicare or choose among competing Medicare Advantage plans run by private insurers, and many can also shop among competing Part D prescription-drug plans.Choice and competition matter, and even one of America’s largest government health programs recognizes that.Medicare for All would eliminate all those choices by effectively outlawing private insurance.Competing insurers would no longer negotiate payments and prices with providers — leaving Washington to become the nation’s single payer for health care.The Medicare for All bill Sen.Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced last year would require the federal government to establish a national health budget.From that amount, Washington would set payment rates for physicians, hospitals and other care providers, with federal bureaucrats deciding what they may be paid for every service they deliver.The sums Washing...