Three doctors in Congress pan socialist ‘Medicare for all’ as really ‘healthcare for none’

By Jon Dougherty

There is little that animates conservatives in Congress — and tens of millions of Americans around the country — than the subject of healthcare.

Nearly a decade after Democrats forced Obamacare on the nation, there is little enviable about the American healthcare system other than to say it is one of the most advanced in the world.

But it remains ghastly expensive, and unnecessarily so; nothing about Obamacare has lowered costs, improved access, or widened coverage.

Now, the growing socialist faction of the Democratic Party wants to double down on government healthcare interference and control with a scheme called “Medicare for All,” which is full-on socialist healthcare in the vein of Britain’s National Health Service, which is failing, as we reported Saturday.

The Daily Signal‘s Rob Bluey spoke to three members of Congress — all of whom are Republicans, granted, but all of whom are also licensed medical doctors who have practiced within the Obamacare framework and still practice. Not only do they have experience dealing with the ‘Affordable Care Act,’ they’ve had to deal with the Medicare as well — as it isÂ now, which is anything but easy or efficient.

Bluey sat down with Reps. Scott DesJarlais, Paul Gosar, and Andy Harris to talk Medicare for All and solutions. Here are snippets of those interviews:

Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md.:Â The Medicare for All plan that was announced a couple weeks by my Democrat colleagues, over 100 of them, really will result in care for none. Thatâ€™s the bottom line.

You canâ€™t offer free care to everyone and expect anything but rationing to be the result. The costs are huge. We already have a trillion-dollar deficit in federal government spending. To add more to it will result in rationing.

When you dissect this plan piece by piece, including the elimination of all private insurance, not even socialized medicine in England has that. We go well beyond the socialized medical schemes of Europe in the Medicare for All plan. Itâ€™s just going to be a nonstarter.

Rep. Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn.:Â When I think of Medicare for All, I think, â€œWhat can you compare that to? What would it be like?â€

I think right now, a system that everybody knows and is aware of is the VA system. The VA system, in a way, is similar for the veterans. The biggest complaint you hear most times out of the VA system is long wait times or sometimes poor access to specialists. Can you just imagine what it would be like if you turned the whole country into a system right now that we canâ€™t handle on a smaller scale?



