There is no doubt that the entirety of the Democratic Party wants single payer or socialized medicine.  There is now little doubt that far too many in the Republican Party, while not overtly in favor of national health care, would do little to overturn Obamacare -- which is greatly accelerating the inexorable march toward that goal.   The debacle that was the drafting and promotion of the American Health Care Act by the Republican leadership in the House confirmed the existence of that mindset among many Republicans.  Among them is President Donald Trump.

The failure to repeal and replace Obamacare with a free market alternative was partly due to the indifference of the President as to the actual language of the Bill and his sole desire to say that Obamacare had been replaced irrespective of the reality.   That he is now blaming everyone else for its failure as well as stating his desire to work with the Democrats to craft a new bill is a window into his true state of mind on the subject of health care.    

I have been roundly vilified over the past 18 months for claiming that Trump is not a conservative and has a long history of favoring liberal causes, chiefly nationalized health care, which will be an unmitigated disaster for the American people.

I highlighted and was troubled about this issue as Donald Trump has not been shy regarding his views on the subject.   There have been numerous occasions since 1999 through January of 2017 when he has touted socialized medicine.  

In 1999 when Trump was contemplating a run for President under the banner of the Reform Party, he told Larry King:

If you can’t take care of your sick in the country, forget it, it’s over…I believe in universal healthcare.

Also in 1999 on NBC’s Dateline he said:

            Liberal on healthcare, we have to take care of people…I love universal.

In 2000 he told The Advocate:

I would put forward a comprehensive health care program and fund it with an increase in corporate taxes.

Also in 2000 Trump published a book The America We Deserve wherein he praised universal healthcare systems:

We must have universal healthcare…I’m a conservative on most issues but a liberal on this one.  We should not hear so many stories of families ruined by healthcare expenses.

We need, as a nation, to reexamine the single payer plan, as many individual states are doing.

There are many who would dismiss these quotes as being ancient history and claim that Trump has evolved and changed his views.  However, he has not.  On 60 Minutes in September of 2015 in an interview with Scott Pelley:

Trump: “Everybody’s got to be covered.  This is an un-Republican thing for me to say because a lot of times they say, No, no, the lower 25 percent that can’t afford private. But-“

Pelley: “Universal health care.”

Trump: “I am going to take care of everybody.  I don’t care if it costs me votes or not.  Everybody’s going to be taken care of now.”

Pelley: “The uninsured person is going to be taken care of?  How? How?

Trump: “They’re going to be taken care of.  I would probably make a deal with existing hospitals to take care of people.  And, you know what, if this is probably—"

Pelley: “Make a deal? Who’s going to pay for it?

Trump: “The Government is going to pay for it”

Appearing on The Late Show with David Letterman in January of 2015 Trump told a story about a friend who visited Scotland which revealed his true mindset about healthcare:

A friend of mine was in Scotland recently.  He got very, very sick.  They took him by ambulance and he was there four days.  He was really in trouble, and when they released him and he said, ‘Where do I pay?’  And they said. ‘There’s no charge.’  Not only that, he said it was like great doctors, great care.  I mean we could have a great system like that in this country.”

Most recently, on January 15, 2017 in an interview with the Washington Post Trump stated:

We’re going to have insurance for everyone.

There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can’t pay for it, you don’t get it.  That’s not going to happen with us.  People can expect to have great health care.

After the failure to pass the AHCA, Trump says he now wants to work the members of a left-wing political party whose lifelong dream has been nationalized health care.  Is this just a fit of pique?  Ot is Trump seeking political revenge on those he perceives to have stabbed him in the back because they did not march in lockstep to pass a bill that slightly amended Obamacare?  Or does he not care if Obamacare is fully repealed?   As that will, in due course, eventuate in the American people clamoring for a single payer system that he has long touted.

The Left has known that instituting national health care would not be an easy task in a nation with a long history of individual freedom.  Therefore, their overriding strategy in passing Obamacare was to so disrupt the private insurance market and significantly alter the delivery of health service that there would eventually be an extraordinary level of dissatisfaction for the citizenry.  At that stage, the people would clamor for a solution which would be socialized medicine as any return to a free market based system would be essentially impossible.

Donald Trump and the Republican leadership are apparently in agreement that any return to a free market based system is now impossible as they seemingly have no desire or determination to even attempt to do so.   If that is the case, then the next few stops on this health care journey with Trump at the controls will bring the nation ever closer to the ultimate destination: national health care.

rev. 0534