The magical thinking of Medicare for all

But that’s hardly where the problems end for BernieCare. His plan would also phase out employer-provided health care. That, even though some 70 percent of workers in those plans say they’re satisfied with their coverage. Sanders’ plan would require millions of Americans to trade something that seems to be more or less working for them for something new and uncertain, both in coverage and cost.

In other words, the Sanders plan fails to recognize either political or economic reality, much in the same way Republican tax cutters frequently do. When a GOPer argues for “scrapping the tax code” despite all the long-term business investment and personal retirement plans built around it, that’s ignoring real-world constraints. But ignoring constraints is what populists do the world over. They capitalize on economic dissatisfaction by promising economic salvation, as noted in the classic 1991 paper “The Macroeconomics of Populism” by Rudiger Dornbusch and Sebastian Edwards. From that research into Latin American economic failure…