Medicare for All: a costly, tired, bad idea

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have tried to dust it off and parade it around as though it were something new, but “Medicare for All” is as terrible an idea today as it was when it was first sent to Congress more than 80 years ago.

In 1945, President Harry Truman formally endorsed a national health plan that aimed to expand care access and lower costs. It failed miserably.

Twenty years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson gave us the albatross that is Medicare. The intention of Johnson and many proponents of the law was to use it as a springboard into affordable universal healthcare coverage.

But despite multiple Medicare expansions, changes and re-brandings in the past six decades, America has yet to see it become the utopia of which the left dreams.

It hasn’t been for lack of trying — or lack of funding. Today, Medicare is the second largest program of the federal government, which last year spent approximately $1.21 trillion on it. Yet by 2032, Medicare is likely to be insolvent.

Other attempts at universal healthcare coverage have famously tanked. In the 16 years since passage of the ironically named Affordable Care Act — which was touted as the long-sought, self-sustaining solution to Americans’ rising healthcare costs — we have seen premiums rise across the board, costlier employer-provided health insurance and rampant fraud.

Nor has it paid for itself as promised. In 2025, taxpayers were covering 80% of Obamacare plan costs, according to City Journal.

Now the DSA and its hordes of anti-U.S., anti-Israel congressional candidates are acting like they just came up with the idea — and they’re hoping you’re too dumb to remember otherwise.

“We need a single, universal system with comprehensive coverage that is free at the point of service,” the DSA declares on its website. “Help the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) fight to replace our broken, for-profit health system with Medicare for All!”

As with socialism in general, surely the umpteenth try at single-payer healthcare will be the one that actually delivers and doesn’t end up costing the everyman instead of “the richest individuals and corporations” it was supposed to. Right? Wrong.

Recently, the DSA has been touting a Yale study finding that Medicare for All would save 114,000 lives and slash healthcare spending in the U.S. by over $1 trillion annually. But here’s just a taste of what this non-plan would really do:

Cost the U.S. anywhere from $71 trillion to $212 trillion over the next 10 years. And as the CATO Institute writes, “[c]onfiscating every dollar of high-end wealth and corporate profits would cover only a fraction of those costs. The DSA agenda necessitates high taxes on middle-class Americans.” Result in patient-endangering, sometimes-years-long waitlists a la England’s National Health Service (NHS). At the end of May, approximately 6.2 million Britons were awaiting care under the NHS. Raise U.S. spending to from 57% to 92% of GDP, making our government second only to Finland in size among industrialized nations.

Medicare for All by any name is a lousy, non-viable idea that any kindergartner would dismiss within minutes for its lack of merits and fairness. Come November, American voters should reject it too.