By Chris Woodward
A so-called Medicare-For-All plan continues to add left-wing supporters on Capitol Hill but a right-wing critic suspects they wouldn't be part of it.
The plan comes from Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is pushing the single-payer plan that he trumpeted when he sought and lost the Democratic Party's nomination last year.
To date more than a dozen Democratic colleagues have signed on as co-sponsors to a bill that has little chance in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation predicts that Democrats will eventually insert Medicare for All in their party platform and, just like they did with Obamacare, ask for a pass.
And he bases that prediction on past performances.
"Even though Obamacare requires members of Congress to be in Obamacare," he recalls, "once it passed they realized they were going to have to be paying these much higher premiums themselves."
So then-President Obama was approached by Democrats and some Republicans, who begged him to help them escape paying the large premiums that they, ironically, were forcing other Americans to pay.
"And the President complied with that, found what he would consider a loophole that allows the government to continue to pay most of the premiums for them," Matthews recalls. "I think we would see the same thing happening if Democrats were able to force Medicare on everybody."
Sanders, meanwhile, links his Medicare for All plan with the liberal idea that healthcare is a "right," likening it to a constitutionally-guaranteed right.
The self-described socialist senator once warned, ironically, that "we would bankrupt the nation" if the federal government expanded the Medicaid program, which serves poor Americans, to cover everyone.
OneNewsNow among other news sources has reported that California is flirting with a state program that is estimated to cost $400 billion annually – a cost that would include $200 billion in new state taxes in high-tax California.
Although Americans may not have to deal with rocketing premiums under Medicare-For-All, Matthews says, they will certainly pay higher taxes.