Apparently, Charlie Pierce and I did not get all of Fred Hiatt’s bowels yesterday, and Dr. Pierce is even less enamored of mornings than I am, so I’ll have to at least prep the patient for another surgery today. Apparently, the Post has just now discovered that around election time, politicians make extravagant promises that are unlikely to be kept. Oh, dear - really?
Mr. Sanders’s response to concerns over health-care costs was that other countries, such as Canada and France, spend much less than the United States per person on health care. That is true, but the question is how, specifically, he would make the model work here. The countries he praises ration care in ways that federal health programs in the United States, such as Medicare, do not. While there may be a fair case for a single-payer health-care system, Mr. Sanders does not make it. Instead, he promises comprehensive benefits without seriously discussing the inevitable trade-offs. That is not just bold; it is half-baked.
Sanders’ health care plan is not particularly realistic, I grant you. But I must have missed the editorial about Trump’s wall along the Mexican border, Cruz’s plan to deport undocumented immigrants, Rubio’s plan to eliminate capital gains taxes, etc. Only the socialist gets singled out for having “half-baked” plans, but half is for better than virtually everything coming from the GOP. Their plans are still in the freezer - they’re so unbaked you could get sick if you ate them.