The choice: Keep unchanged the percentage of middle-class income taxed or keep unchanged the percentage of middle-class income paid in medical insurance and bills.

Hillary Clinton chose the first. While Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for all” would raise middle-class taxes modestly, family medical costs disappear, saving typical families thousands of dollars overall. Medical insurance premiums, co-pays, deductibles, would all be gone, just show a “Medicare for all” card.

A state “single payer” reimburses providers based on prices negotiated once a year, making control over medical and drug costs possible.

At over one-sixth of our economy, rising faster than non-medical inflation, the current medical system is a recipe for eventual disaster.

“Medicare for all,” working successfully in many countries, is really the more practical and sustainable approach. Financing of Medicare for all has been detailed in several congressional bills and at Sanders’ website.

A 1993 bill, HR 1200, had universal medical insurance, including long-term care and dental care for children, at no additional cost to middle-class families, by repealing the Bush Sr. tax cuts for high incomes.

Bill Clinton, however, used the tax money to reduce the deficit. His insurer-centered way to reform health care ultimately failed, leaving millions uninsured and denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions.

Are insurers so powerful that “Medicare for all” is impossible? That idea is refuted by history: Theodore Roosevelt taming the trusts, Franklin Roosevelt taming the banks.

Would billionaires spend to crush a Sanders candidacy? To believe that is to surrender to them. Apparently, many people are willing to fight.

Frank Stoppenbach

Red Hook