OPINION:
The Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) Workers Deserve More program is jam-packed with unserious ideas.
These include abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), enacting reparations, fully abolishing the police and prison system, defunding the Defense Department, abolishing the Senate and the Electoral College and replacing “the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.”
Nearly all Americans with a functional frontal lobe rightfully recognize that these utterly foolish policies would wreak societal havoc, beget a massive increase in crime and severely undermine the founding principles of limited government, separation of powers and checks and balances.
Reflexively, due to a powerful force called self-preservation, most people would never support such kooky ideas that would so obviously endanger themselves and their families. Most Americans don’t support these crazy “woke 1.0” causes anymore.
However, that same instinctive reflex does not apply to one plank of the DSA’s platform that is widely supported by Americans even though it will destroy any remaining free-market mechanisms within the U.S. healthcare system.
It goes by the name of Medicare for All. This phrase was coyly branded by the DSA because Medicare is one of the few federal government programs that is widely popular. Medicare for All sounds fantastic on its face.
Who doesn’t want “free” universal healthcare? Who does not wish they could go to the doctor, dentist or physical therapist “free” of charge?
But only feeble-minded people buy the “free” stuff argument, right? Wrong.
Exactly 66% of Americans are being duped by the “free” stuff rhetoric when it comes to healthcare, according to a 2025 Pew Research Poll.
The number of Americans who think “the federal government has a responsibility to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage” has steadily increased, particularly among Democrats.
Incredibly, “90% of Democrats and Democratic leaners say the government has a responsibility to ensure coverage.”
In other words, this is not a fringe DSA idea. Rather, it is embraced by mainstream, establishment Democratic voters and those who lean to the left.
On the other hand, “59% majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say the federal government is not responsible for ensuring health coverage for all.”
Whew.
But “41% say it is.”
Consider this: “Republicans’ views haven’t changed since last year, but the share who say government has this responsibility is 9 percentage points higher than in 2021.”
Most young people, regardless of political persuasion, generally support universal healthcare because they are suckers for the empathy argument. Logic and reason need not apply when it comes to major decisions about the healthcare sector.
On Aug. 13, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Vermont independent, posted on X: “For years, we’ve been told Medicare for All is ‘too radical.’ Really? A new YouGov poll shows 64% of Americans support a Medicare for All, single-payer system. The American people agree: Healthcare is a human right. Let’s get it done.”
This comes on the heels of Mr. Sanders’ Aug. 11 press release emphasizing that “Sanders’ Medicare for All legislation would save 114,000 lives and reduce overall healthcare spending in America by more than $1 trillion a year.”
Mr. Sanders, the DSA and the Medicare for All industrial complex are flooding the zone with misinformation. Sadly, they are not being properly checked by the Fourth Estate.
No one in the mainstream media challenges the left’s legion championing Medicare for All as a human right, end of argument.
I wish the media would not be derelict in their duty of striving for the truth about something that is so obviously too good to be true. Everyone knows that the government cannot make healthcare “free.”
But the federal government can determine who receives exactly what type of healthcare service, product or whatsoever, and even when, how and where, if it is the single-payer.
“Free” healthcare and rationing are conjoined because the almighty federal government simply cannot deem that all costs associated with healthcare development, implementation, research, goods, services and delivery do not exist.
On the other end of the spectrum, imagine a world in which the government played a very limited role in the healthcare sector. We could have a thriving, robust patient-centered healthcare system with a myriad of insurance, care and delivery options.
For some, a high-deductible plan with a health savings account makes sense. For others, a low-deductible plan with widespread coverage is better.
The point is that there is no one-size-fits-all, Medicare for All-type solution.
To make the U.S. healthcare system more patient-/consumer-friendly, we must demand more choice and competition under free-market forces. These should be driven by the law of supply and demand in a macro environment that incentives innovation, ingenuity, efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Like it or not, free enterprise has a stellar record of delivering results based on those metrics under those conditions. Government, not so much.
• Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is editorial director at The Heartland Institute.
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