Is Bernie Sanders a socialist like Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, whose mania for wealth redistribution has brought a country to its knees? Or, as Mr. Sanders suggests, is he merely a “socialist” in the manner of Scandinavian politicians, who presided over thriving free economies before imposing entitlement programs and have since cut corporate tax rates to allow economic growth to fund their promises?

The reaction of Sen. Sanders to a critique of his single-payer health care plan may be instructive. Recently in the Journal, former Social Security and Medicare trustee Charles Blahous forecast the spending required to allow Mr. Sanders to implement his vision of changing health care for every American. Mr. Sanders calls it “Medicare for All.” Mr. Blahous, now at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, explained what it could mean for all taxpayers:

According to my calculations, paying for every American’s health-care expenses would increase federal spending by $32.6 trillion over the first decade of Medicare for All. Even if Congress were to double what it collects in individual and corporate income taxes, there still wouldn’t be enough money added to the federal coffers to finance the costs of this plan.

While such large amounts of money are difficult to comprehend, my cost estimate is essentially a lower bound. Medicare for All’s actual price tag would likely be even higher.

If the Blahous analysis is even close to accurate, it’s a damning indictment of the Sanders plan. How many politicians have even considered wealth redistribution on such a scale? Certainly one would expect a spirited rebuttal from just about any American or Scandinavian elected official accused of planning such an explosion of taxpayer obligations. Remember, before a single nickel is spent on a Sanders-style makeover of American health care, the Congressional Budget Office is already forecasting that U.S. government debt held by the public will surge over the next two decades to 118% of GDP from its current 78%.

Well, Mr. Sanders has lately been pushing back, but he’s not quarreling with the idea that he will be pulling huge sums out of the private economy and into his new health bureaucracy. Instead he’s arguing that this huge federal money grab will be worth it because it will allegedly result in lower overall U.S. health care spending.

No doubt mindful that government services are not generally regarded as models of efficiency and thrift, Mr. Sanders is now appealing to the authority of a third party to back his claims of future cost savings.