If You Have to Ask How Much Socialized Medicine Costs…

Democrats know taxpayers will realize they can’t afford it.

After dismissing for years the idea that Democrats’ health care plans would lead to a government takeover, new House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth on Tuesday asked Congress’ top economist to sketch out the options for a government takeover. The Kentucky Democrat also implicitly sketched out the political game plan: enact socialized medicine before patients and taxpayers understand what they’ll be losing.

In a remarkable document that assumes short political memories, longtime ObamaCare cheerleader Mr. Yarmuth acknowledges that the coverage and cost control promised by Affordable Care Act backers never materialized. Mr. Yarmuth admits that many Americans are still uninsured and still “struggle to afford their health care costs.” Rather than exploring ways to allow more market competition in a health care financing system long dominated by Washington policy, Mr. Yarmuth instead asks in a Tuesday letter to Congressional Budget Office director Keith Hall how Washington can control all of the financing. Specifically, Mr. Yarmuth asks for a report on the “design considerations that policymakers would confront in developing proposals to establish a single-payer system in the United States.”

At a 2013 congressional hearing Mr. Yarmuth crowed that ObamaCare “is putting customers back in charge of their health care.” It was a cruel joke for patients who had their choices of plans and doctors taken away by the 2010 law. But now Mr. Yarmuth and his fellow Democrats aren’t even pretending anymore—they want Washington in charge.

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