SHOCK: WaPo Actually Acknowledges That Single-Payer Isn’t Feasible

The Washington Post made a stunning admission in their Sunday editorial that deviates from their left-wing bent: a single-payer health care system isn’t feasible in the United States.

The Post argued that while there are benefits to such a system, it would come at an “astonishing” price.

“When Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) proposed a ‘Medicare for all’ health plan in his presidential campaign, the nonpartisan Urban Institute figured that it would raise government spending by $32 trillion over 10 years, requiring a tax increase so huge that even the democratic socialist Mr. Sanders did not propose anything close to it,” The Post wrote.

The Post added that the Urban Institute’s figure was likely correct because currently “the U.S. government spends more per American to cover a slice of the population than other governments spend per citizen to cover all of theirs,” so simply expanding the government’s involvement in health care wouldn’t be enough.

Additionally, the costs associated with single-payer would be politically unpopular.

“To realize the single-payer dream of coverage for all and big savings, medical industry players, including doctors, would likely have to get paid less and patients would have to accept different standards of access and comfort,” The Post wrote. “There is little evidence most Americans are willing to accept such tradeoffs.”

The Post concluded their editorial by stating that health care eventually needs to feature “universal coverage and cost restraint” and government involvement could achieve that.

“There are many options short of a disruptive takeover: the government can change how care is delivered, determine which treatments should be covered, control quality at hospitals, drive down drug costs and discourage high-cost health-care plans even while making the Obamacare system better at filling coverage gaps,” The Post wrote.

In short, The Post seems sympathetic to the idea of a single-payer health care system but they don’t think it would work in the United States. They’re a little more realistic than Bernie Sanders’ far-left supporters but they still have the end-goal of health care reform wrong. If universal coverage and cost control is the goal, then the quality of health care will decline:

The Post is in favor of sacrificing quality for universal coverage and affordability, meaning that everyone will be left with worse care and thereby worse health outcomes.

The problem with single-payer isn’t just the cost, it’s the fact that it’s inherently immoral. As Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro has explained, nobody has the right to force someone else to provide them with a service:

The best solution for health care is a system that values affordability and quality, a system that embraces the free market.

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