It seems fitting that the Democratic National Committee chose Miami to host the first debates of the 2020 presidential campaign. Given that many of the candidates appearing on stage have endorsed a single-payer health care plan, the debates’ location epitomizes how government-run care will lead to a massive increase in fraud and corruption.

In South Florida, defrauding government health care programs doesn’t just qualify as a cottage industry — it’s big business. In 2009, “60 Minutes” noted that Medicare fraud “has pushed aside cocaine as the major criminal enterprise.” One former fraudster admitted that likely thousands of businesses in the Miami area alone were defrauding Medicare. Eric Holder, then the attorney general, explained why: Medicare fraud is easier — and carries smaller penalties — than dealing drugs.

A 2009 Government Accountability Office report also highlighted pervasive fraud within Medicare. For instance, some South Florida home health agencies “have submitted claims for visits that were probably not provided, such as claims for visits that allegedly occurred when hurricanes were in the area.” Auditors also found that fraudsters paid off seniors to cooperate with their scams. Because some “beneficiaries purportedly received more income in illegal [kickbacks] than from their monthly disability checks,” they would not report fraud to government officials.

Lest anyone believe that much has changed in the past decade, the spring of 2019 saw not one but two billion-dollar — that’s billion with a B — fraud rings against Medicare exposed in a single week. On April 7, Philip Esformes, a South Florida businessman, was convicted for bilking Medicare and Medicaid out of $1.3 billion in fraudulent nursing home claims. Two days later, federal authorities charged dozens more individuals in a $1.2 billion Medicare scam regarding neck braces.

If you think that the single-payer bills promoted by Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and others would stop this rampant fraud, think again. Both the House and Senate single-payer bills include not a single new provision designed to stop crooks from defrauding government health programs. The bills would apply some existing anti-fraud provisions to the new government-run health program. However, given the widespread fraud in Medicare and Medicaid, expanding the failed status quo would increase corruption rather than reducing it.

To give some sense of perspective, in the last fiscal year Medicare had a rate of improper payments — payments either made in the wrong amount, or made under fraudulent pretenses — of 8.12%. Medicaid had an even higher improper payment rate of 9.8%. Extrapolating those rates to all health spending nationwide yields estimated improper payments under a single-payer system of between $296.1 billion and $357.3 billion. These sums of potential improper payments under single payer exceed the entire economies of countries like Finland and Denmark.

If lawmakers like Bernie Sanders want to see the ways in which socialized medicine will increase fraud, they don’t have far to look. Sanders’ Senate colleague Robert Menendez received nearly $1 million in gifts and favors from Salomon Melgen, yet another South Florida medical provider convicted of defrauding Medicare. Yet over several years, Menendez repeatedly lobbied Medicare officials on his friend Melgen’s behalf — using his influence as a senator to try to protect Melgen from his crimes.

At next week’s debates, moderators should ask candidates supporting Sanders’ plan whether they condone the actions of their colleague Menendez — and whether they think concentrating all power in a government-run health plan will increase or decrease the incidence of fraud and corruption within our health care system. The American people deserve better than to pay massive tax increases for this $32 trillion scheme, only to see much of that money end up in the hands of criminal fraudsters.