9/13/2019 - Elaine Parker Townhall.com
On Thursday, 10 Democratic
candidates took the stage for the third debate in the 2020 race for the White
House. And let’s just say, crazy town is at full capacity with this crew and
the policies they support.
You name the problem—genuine or
overblown—and they have a big government program or initiative that will fix
it. At least, that’s what they claim. The candidates had many opportunities to
highlight them during the three-hour primetime spectacle.
First up on the docket was
healthcare—a topic that continues to be a focus of policy discussions in the
primary, and rightly so. Healthcare in the U.S. is not perfect and rising costs
continue to pose a threat to the health and safety of many Americans. However,
there’s no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater; our doctors and
hospitals currently offer the best healthcare in the world.
If only all candidates took that
nuanced viewpoint to heart.
For the most part, 2020 Democratic
candidates support socialized medicine; more specifically Medicare for All or a
flavor of it. In short, the program would eliminate private health insurance
for roughly 200 million Americans and replace it with
government bureaucracy. Not only will it remove competition and choice—which
drives the industry to continuously improve—but it will cost a fortune. One
estimate pegs the cost of the program at $33 trillion for the first 10 years.
As seen in the U.K. and Canada,
federalized healthcare has major consequences. For example, more than 60,000 Canadian patients flee the country each year to
avoid extreme wait times for health services. And nearly one-million Canadians
are stuck on healthcare wait lists, while the queue in the U.K. has ballooned
to 4.1 million—many of whom often wait 18 weeks for treatment.
When applied to the U.S. population, that would translate to 10 million and 20
million Americans on a healthcare wait list respectively.
Simply put, government-run
healthcare will not be free and it will not provide the care Americans have
come to expect.
Another focus was the “climate
crisis.” The candidates broadly agree that climate change is a major
threat—with some predicting the world will be reduced to a plume of ash in the
near future if drastic action is not taken (I jest).
Joking aside, taking better care of
our environment is something all Americans should strive for. However, it
should be approached reasonably so unintended consequences don’t become worse
than the issue that is being addressed. This is where many of the candidates
begin to struggle.
Case in point is presidential
hopeful Senator Bernie Sanders. While all the candidates propose extreme
regulation to curb climate change, Sanders’ version of the Green New Deal is in
another zip code. Not only does his plan
call for all current forms of energy production to be replaced with
clean alternatives by 2030, it federalizes the industry altogether.
Just what we need. The financial
insolvency and frustrating customer service that plagues the DMV and Post
Office spread to the businesses that heat our homes and power our factories. What
could go wrong? At least it comes at the bargain basement price of $16.3
trillion.
Besides the government takeover of
healthcare and energy production, the candidates offered an assortment of other
costly and fundamentally-flawed ideas. Businessman Andrew Yang pushed for all
Americans to receive a no-strings-attached allowance from the government. And
Senator Elizabeth Warren wants to forgive trillions of dollars in student loan
debt and offer free college to future students. The list goes on and on.
It’s difficult to sit on the couch
and watch these candidates tout far-fetched initiatives that will bankrupt the
country and its taxpayers. But I guess that’s what’s expected when these
presidential hopefuls and their policies are stuck in crazy town.
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