Single-payer is dead — except not at all, if you ask the next generation of voters

Will these voters believe in single-payer once they grow up, have families and start paying taxes? As the saying goes, “If a person is not a liberal when he is twenty, he has no heart; if he is not a conservative when he is forty, he has no head.” Perhaps not.People’s politics and priorities change as they age.

But it’s also pretty clear that the youngest generation is more predisposed toward something like single-payer. That probably won’t make it viable in the near term — and much depends on how Obamacare (a middle-ground approach between single-payer and the old system) pans out. But it means the idea is unlikely to die completely any time soon.

From there, it’s about whether any state can practically implement it. And the fact that a state like Vermont — whose politics are … well … the most conducive to something like single-payer — isn’t a great omen.