Sen. Bernie Sanders earlier this month launched “Medicare for All,” version 5.0, much to the delight of Republicans and the consternation of establishment Democrats, who both see in the proposal a potential return ticket to office for President Donald Trump.

Republicans in Washington, of course, have no health care plan of their own — unless it is “Medicaid for None.” And they have no plans to have a plan, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell candidly informed Trump earlier this month when he renewed his push to end the Affordable Care Act. So negation is a welcome alternative for the GOP.

Democrats of the Hillary Clinton mold who bear residual antipathy toward Sanders from 2016 are said to worry that supporting Medicare for All will become a litmus test — and an electoral albatross — for all the Democratic presidential contenders. We doubt that even the warm reception Sanders and his plan received last week at a town hall meeting sponsored by Fox News did much to alleviate that angst.

It’s probably inevitable in the current climate that any substantive policy debate will be inundated by a wave of speculation about its political ramifications, but we cherish the hope — or perhaps nurse the illusion — that something as momentous as overhauling the nation’s health care system might prove an exception.

Actually, “overhauling” is an understatement. Blowing it up and building anew is probably a more accurate description. Much like its four predecessors, the current version of Medicare for All would create a government-run, single-payer health insurance plan along the lines of the current Medicare program for seniors, except that everyone would be enrolled. Just about everything would be covered, including vision and dental care. Premiums, co-pays and deductibles would become a thing of the past, as would most private insurance.

The Sanders plan has the great twin virtues of simplicity and predictability. The whole complicated rigamarole of trying to figure out whether the particular health care you need is covered by your insurance would be eliminated, as would filing insurance claims. Everyone could keep the doctor they have and like, because every doctor would participate. No one would lose insurance when they switch jobs or are fired; nor would they have to adjust to different coverage and providers if their employer changed insurers.

And because the government would negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies and set reimbursement rates for medical services, Medicare for All would drive down costs, something that Obamacare, for all its good points, has largely been unable to do.

Anticipating the argument that the program is unaffordable, Sanders has posted on his Senate website a five-page outline of options to finance Medicare for All. He contends that while the program would be funded with some array of new taxes, most people would pay less for health coverage than the $5,277 in premiums an average working family paid last year.

Reasonable people can disagree about whether Medicare for All is preferable to improving the current system. And it may well be that many people would prefer to stick with the flawed known than leap into to a putatively better unknown. We look forward to robust debate among Democratic presidential hopefuls not only about whether Medicare for All is the right approach, but also about the best way to pay for it.

But give credit where credit is due: Sanders has brought what not so long ago was regarded as a radical notion into the mainstream of political debate through his dogged advocacy over many long years in Congress. The hallmark of this crusade has been a clear vision and a sharp focus on the benefits he thinks ordinary Americans would reap from abolishing the current maze of health care coverage and replacing it with a government-run system.

Changing a deeply entrenched system is a long game in which victory is possible only after the field has been adequately prepared. Consider that the dream of a national health insurance program began with Harry Truman and was only partially realized many years later during Lyndon Johnson’s presidency with the enactment of the current Medicare program.

Medicare for All may go too far and too fast for Americans today, but its central truth — that health care is a right and not a privilege of wealth — has begun to resonate with many segments of the electorate. It’s not bound to happen, but with persistent effort and advocacy, it just might.