Imagine government bureaucrats in Washington deciding whether your life is worth saving or not. Such a nightmare that could very well become a reality should the Democrats get their way.

When the government gets involved in healthcare, it always leads to disaster and death — and “Medicare for All” is the crown jewel of social healthcare programs.

Those who are still unsure about the effectiveness of a government-run healthcare system should look to our northern neighbor, Canada, to see for themselves.

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Suzanne Aucoin, from Ontario, was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer. While her doctor suggested a cancer drug Erbitux — an alternative to chemotherapy — Aucoin’s state-sponsored insurance refused to cover an alternative drug to chemotherapy. I had Stage IV colon cancer twelve years ago, and I certainly didn’t have the government trying to slow me down.

That drug, however, is covered by American insurance companies. Imagine if you couldn’t get the drugs you needed to live because the government decided they were too costly. The socialist healthcare system in the United Kingdom is equally as concerning.

Patients seeking routine surgeries there have to wait 18 weeks on average for treatment. The alarming wait time is just as long for those who need complex procedures — hip and knee replacements are estimated have waiting lines of up to 100 days.

But that’s just Canada and Europe, right? You might be thinking that there’s no way that could happen here. Well, thanks to Obama and the Democrats, it already is — and they only want more by promoting “Medicare for All.” In 2014, just minutes before he was supposed to receive his life-saving chemotherapy treatment, an Iowa pastor who was insured under Obamacare was told that his treatment wouldn’t be covered.

“There’s no compassion in the Affordable Care Act,” he said. In a desperate attempt to pay for the procedure, the pastor’s family had to empty their entire life savings and went into $50,000 debt just to keep him breathing. Intended to combat the rising costs of healthcare, Obamacare managed the opposite, driving up healthcare premiums in states like Iowa.

At the end of the tunnel, the point at which the government decides between your life and the bottom line lies the so-called death panel. When the government is in charge of healthcare, its budget is more of a concern than the health of a patient.

If the state deems a particular medicine or treatment to be too expensive, even if it could save your life, you will be left to die. There are countless examples of drugs and treatments available in the U.S. that aren’t available in countries with fully socialist healthcare systems. Moreover, seniors are always the first to feel the effects of socialized medicine — after all, when millions of people are waiting in line to receive basic treatment, performing high-risk procedures on older patients is certainly an expensive burden for the state.

But despite the well-documented, devastating effects of socialized medicine, “Medicare for All” has become a mainstream policy position in the Democrat Party. During a recent speech, former President Obama — the mastermind of the current healthcare crisis — praised the idea of a government-run healthcare system in America. Perhaps intentionally destroying our healthcare markets, as many conservative observers suggested, was part of the plan all along. “Democrats aren’t just running on good old ideas like a higher minimum wage,” he said, “they’re running on good new ideas like Medicare for all.”

Seniors who have lived through the nightmares of Obamacare know that government-controlled healthcare is not the answer for our broken healthcare model, and that is precisely why they can’t let Washington pass “Medicare for All.”

Trusting the government to manage your healthcare is like trusting a lion to watch your baby – and we all know how that story ends.

Herman Cain is former CEO of the National Restaurant Association and a former presidential candidate.