American liberals (i.e., progressives or leftists) are hell-bent on achieving their next big socialist objective: Medicare for All, which will expand the federal government’s role into healthcare to an even greater extent. Make no mistake about it: They won’t stop there. If they achieve that objective, they will soon be advocating for a complete federal takeover of healthcare, where all the doctors and healthcare providers are federal employees and everyone’s healthcare treatment is provided by the government, just like in Cuba, which leftists often cite as their healthcare model.

In advocating for Medicare for All, leftists are implicitly acknowledging the failure of their socialist system of Medicare and Medicaid that was adopted in the 1960s. After all, if Medicare and Medicaid were the great success that proponents said they would be, there would never have been a healthcare crisis.

Moreover, if Obamacare had been the great success that proponents said it would be, the healthcare crisis would have been over by now, and there would have been no need to now be calling for Medicare for All.

The situation will be the same if Medicare for All is adopted. The healthcare crisis will continue and actually get worse. That’s how we know that the inevitable next proposal will be a full-fledged, Cuba-like federal takeover of healthcare.

Here is what every American must ultimately confront: Socialism cannot be made to work, even when it is been run by patriotic American bureaucrats. Socialism is an inherently defective paradigm regardless of who is running it. Socialism leads to crises and chaos. That’s why there is a healthcare crisis in America. It’s because America chose to embrace a socialist healthcare system through the adoption of Medicare and Medicaid.

And here is another harsh reality that Americans must also confront: There is no healthcare reform that is going to resolve America’s healthcare crisis. That’s because it’s impossible to make socialism work. Thus, anyone who spends his time, money, and energy coming up with healthcare reform is wasting his time, money, and energy. He’d be better off playing golf or hiking.

Before the adoption of Medicare and Medicaid, the United States had the finest healthcare system in the world. Doctors loved what they did in life. Inventions, innovations, and healthcare technological advances were soaring. Healthcare was reasonably priced. The needs of the poor were being met through voluntary action.

It is impossible to imagine how fantastic healthcare would be today if the United States had not adopted Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s. The adoption of healthcare socialism began the slide toward the destruction of what was once the finest healthcare system in history. Prices of healthcare began soaring. The ongoing, never-ending healthcare crisis was set into motion. Doctors began hating what they did in life. All sorts of professional contortions began being adopted to adapt to the ever-shifting tides of the crisis. And, of course, an ever-increasing array of healthcare “reforms” began being proposed and then adopted to address the ongoing, never-ending healthcare crisis.

But as the economist Ludwig von Mises pointed out, with each new reform intervention comes a new crisis, which then necessitates a new reform, which then necessitates a new crisis. That’s how we could tell that Obamacare was never going to be the end of the story. That’s how we knew that liberals would soon be calling for Medicare for All. That’s how we know how this story will end — with a full-fledged Cuba-like takeover of healthcare, one where the federal government will be maintaining possession and control over everyone’s healthcare records.

There is but one solution to America’s healthcare woes: a total free market in healthcare. The free market produces the best of everything. It would do the same in healthcare. That would necessarily entail the end of all governmental involvement in healthcare, including the repeal, not the reform, of Medicare and Medicaid as well as the abolition of all laws, programs, regulations, tax provisions, departments, and agencies that relate to healthcare. In other words, a total separation of healthcare and the state, in the same way our ancestors separated church and state. That is the only way to restore health to America’s healthcare system.