Bernie Sanders has spent decades railing against the high costs of healthcare, prescription drugs, education, and housing. His latest op-ed in The Guardian is no exception, offering bold solutions like Medicare for All, federally mandated price controls, and a $15/hour minimum wage. But like a doctor ignoring the root cause of a patient’s illness, Bernie’s cures focus only on the symptoms. Worse yet, these treatments threaten to kill the patient: America’s economy.
Treating the Symptoms, Ignoring the Disease
At no point in his op-ed does Bernie Sanders take responsibility for Congress’ role in creating the problems he decries. Instead, he lays the blame squarely on “corporate greed” and offers solutions that merely redistribute the cost of bloated, inefficient systems onto taxpayers.
Take healthcare, for example. Bernie’s Medicare for All plan would expand Medicare’s current practices to the entire system. But Medicare has a well-documented penchant for underpaying providers—reimbursing hospitals at only about 87% of their costs. This shortfall is passed on to private insurers, driving up premiums for everyone else. By making Medicare the only payer (a monopoly, if you will), Bernie would eliminate this cost-shifting, but only by bankrupting providers outright. Rural hospitals, already operating on razor-thin margins, would close their doors, and the system would collapse under its own weight.
Bernie’s solutions focus entirely on who pays the bill, but not on why the bill is so high in the first place. His prescription drug policy, for instance, demands that Americans pay the same prices as countries with strict price controls, ignoring the fact that U.S. prices fund the global innovation pipeline. Slashing prices sounds appealing but would stifle the very research that produces life-saving treatments. Instead of addressing inflated healthcare costs, Bernie would simply pass the unsustainable burden onto taxpayers.
If Congress doesn’t work to reduce healthcare costs, we’ll soon need insurance for everything—even buying groceries. At this rate, “food insurance” isn’t far off.
A Strategy of Destruction, Intentional or Not
For over 30 years in Congress, Bernie Sanders has positioned himself as the perpetual outsider, railing against the injustices of the private healthcare system. Yet, his actions—or inaction—raise an uncomfortable question: Is his goal to reform the system, or to dismantle it entirely?
The parallels to the Cloward-Piven strategy are hard to ignore. Originally developed in the 1960s, the Cloward-Piven strategy suggested overwhelming a system to the point of collapse, forcing the adoption of radical alternatives. Whether intentional or accidental, Bernie’s relentless rhetoric against private healthcare—without offering practical reforms to stabilize or improve it—seems to follow this playbook.
By focusing solely on the failures of private insurance, inflated costs, and corporate greed, Bernie sows disillusionment with the current system. At the same time, his refusal to address Congress’ role in driving up costs ensures that these issues persist. This approach risks pushing the private healthcare system into crisis, making a government-run monopoly appear to be the only solution.
The Consequences:
- Public Disillusionment: Constant criticism without tangible reform breeds frustration, eroding public confidence in private healthcare.
- No Path to Improvement: By refusing to engage with incremental, bipartisan solutions, Bernie ensures the system remains dysfunctional.
- Inevitable Collapse: The longer costs spiral and dissatisfaction grows, the closer we get to a breaking point where a single-payer system—no matter how flawed—feels like the only option.
Is this by design, or simply the result of ideological rigidity? Bernie’s legislative record suggests it might be the former. Despite decades in Congress, he has made no serious attempt to address the root causes of healthcare inflation. Instead, his focus has been on symbolic bills like Medicare for All that stand no chance of passing, ensuring the problems remain unresolved.
If Bernie were truly committed to fixing the system, he would champion reforms that reduce costs at their source. But by neglecting these opportunities, he allows the private system to fester, nudging it closer to collapse.
The Danger of Bernie’s Cures
Bernie’s proposals might sound compassionate, but their consequences would be devastating. Medicare for All would quadruple federal healthcare spending, requiring an additional $3.28 trillion annually. This would translate to an extra $16,500 per year in taxes for every U.S. taxpayer. Worse, by extending Medicare’s underpayment practices, it would decimate provider networks, reduce access to care, and leave no room for innovation.
The same flawed logic applies to his minimum wage proposal. Raising the federal minimum wage to $15/hour might work in high-cost cities like New York, but it would devastate businesses in rural areas where costs—and revenues—are much lower. Small businesses would face layoffs, closures, and increased automation, harming the very workers Bernie claims to champion.
Bernie’s solutions are like poorly tested drugs: they might alleviate some immediate symptoms, but their side effects will be far worse than the disease.
A Real Cure: Get Costs Down to Pay Out-of-Pocket Again
The real way to fix America’s problems isn’t to redistribute inflated costs but to reduce them at their source. Imagine a system where families could once again pay for healthcare out-of-pocket, where insurance is reserved for rare, catastrophic events. Achieving this isn’t a pipe dream—it’s a matter of addressing the inefficiencies driving costs sky-high.
In healthcare, this means Congress must:
- Fix Medicare Cost-Shifting: Increase reimbursement rates to stop passing costs to private insurers.
- Promote Price Transparency: Require providers to disclose costs upfront so patients can shop for affordable care.
- Eliminate Barriers to Competition: Outdated regulations like Certificate of Need laws must go, allowing more providers to enter the market.
- Incentivize Efficiency: Foster innovation in care delivery that lowers costs without sacrificing quality.
The same principles apply to education and housing. Instead of forgiving student loans, Congress should reform federal loan programs to align with actual value, invest in vocational training, and hold colleges accountable for tuition inflation. In housing, streamlining zoning and permitting processes would lower construction costs and increase supply, making homes affordable without subsidies.
Conclusion: Bernie’s Brilliant Cures Will Kill the Patient
Bernie Sanders has spent his career diagnosing America’s problems, but his latest op-ed shows he’s still treating the symptoms. His solutions—Medicare for All, price caps, and wage mandates—focus on shifting costs without addressing the root causes of inflation. Worse, they threaten to destroy the systems they aim to save, leaving Americans with fewer choices, higher taxes, and diminished innovation.
America doesn’t need Bernie’s band-aids. We need leaders in Congress to step up and bring healthcare costs—and everything else Bernie decries—back to levels where they can be paid out-of-pocket. Because while Bernie’s cures might sound brilliant, they’ll kill the patient.
Dave Soulia | FYIVT
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