It was only a few years ago that President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats rammed into law a trillion-dollar mish-mash of government spending, taxes and regulations called the Affordable Care Act – more commonly known as ObamaCare.

The rollout was a mess – Obama’s team couldn’t even design a functioning website.

And it’s only been downhill from there.

ALFREDO ORTIZ: HOUSE DEMS FOCUS ON SINGLE-PAYER HEALTH CARE – HERE'S WHAT YOU WON'T HEAR

Millions of Americans lost health insurance plans they liked. Millions more were priced out of the government-controlled exchanges, and so couldn’t afford the promised "affordable" care at all.

And most of the people ObamaCare supposedly helped found themselves not with good insurance, but stuck in a Medicaid program so dysfunctional that most doctors don’t even accept it anymore.

But if you think this mess might humble Democrats' confidence in big government and themselves, think again.

Today leading liberals are no longer content with politicians and bureaucrats controlling most of the American health care system – they want Washington to take it all. The total federal takeover of the U.S. medical industry was once the fever dream of socialist extremists like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

But today, so-called “single-payer” health insurance – including the elimination of all private health insurance – is the mainstream position of the Democratic Party. It is going to be their platform in the 2020 presidential campaign, and their plan as soon as they win back power.

Like most progressive slogans, so-called "single-payer" health care sounds nice. But, as health care expert Chris Jacobs lays out in his new book, The Case Against Single Payer, the reality is worse than the talking points.

Make no mistake: "single-payer" health care means politicians and bureaucrats – not patients or their families, not doctors or nurses or other providers – call the shots. During the debates about ObamaCare, Democrats promised their plan was a compromise that would split the difference between market-driven and government-controlled health care.

Under single-payer health care, there is no difference to split. It means government pays the doctors and hospital beds, pays for the tests, pays for the medicine, pays for everything – that means government, not you or your doctor, will be calling the shots.

Since there is no upper limit on health care services people might want, politicians in charge of single-payer systems have to choose whether to bankrupt their countries, or ration care. They start by raising taxes, but it’s never enough. They always end up rationing care. What does that mean?

It means refusing certain medicines, surgeries, procedures, and services to patients the government deems unworthy of the expense.

Under single-payer health care, you’ll pay more not just for less health care, but to be refused care that you need and could otherwise afford. You don’t have to be an expert to know who this rationing will hurt the most – the very young, the very old, and individuals with disabilities.

Every Democratic version of single-payer health care would include taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand. Indeed, they will go a step further and require pro-life doctors to perform abortions and other procedures that violate their religious beliefs.

But single-payer health care would not only be morally bankrupt; it would be plain-old bankrupt too!

America already faces a $22 trillion national debt. Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen has called the debt our biggest national security risk.

Single-payer health care is projected to cost a minimum of $32 trillion all by itself, just in the first 10 years of implementation. Such fiscal recklessness would not just swamp the federal budget; it could drown our entire economy.

The left has an almost theological belief in the capacity of government to solve everyone’s problems. But the history of socialized medicine – in Canada, Great Britain, and elsewhere – is that it causes more problems than it solves.

Democrats are right that American health care is too expensive and bureaucratic, warps our economy, and riddles the federal budget with waste and cronyism. But their proposed solution would only double-down on these dysfunctions.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Real health care reform requires getting politicians and bureaucrats out of the way. They have done enough harm as it is. It’s time to get health care power out of Washington.

Politicians can’t solve our health care problems. They should hand control of the system back to the patients, families, and health care providers who can.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE BY JIM DEMINT