You might think that after the November elections, the last group anyone will listen to for guidance on the American public are partisan pundits. But they are still lobbying for an alternative result, now saying that if President Trump wants to honor his commitment to repealing the The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) while allowing more coverage, better benefits, and lower costs, the only choice is a Single Payer system; socialized medicine.

They list now-famous pretend money, the same optimistic estimates that led to the Obamacare system being financially viable, savings of $504 billion annually on health care bureaucracy and profits.

Democrats are gleeful because they can claim that repeal of Obamacare has stalled, when they set a record low in approving Cabinet appointees so not much could get done anyway. But Republicans can claim they are being measured and thoughtful. To fill that gap, Drs. Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein are advocating for a single-payer system and claim anything else would slash would slash Medicaid spending for the poor. But they leave out that estimates on Obamacare wildly exaggerate the enrollment. 25-year-olds would ordinarily have minimal insurance through an employer or school, having them on their parents' policy forces costs up across the board. Most of the 12 million actual enrollees qualified for Medicaid anyway. So the few who couldn't get reasonable coverage are not costing $500 billion a year.

Woolhandler and Himmelstein claim that a government takeover of health care would save $220 billion on insurance overhead, $150 billion in hospital billing and administration and $75 billion doctors' billing and paperwork. They estimate that an additional $113 billion could be saved each year by hard bargaining with drug companies over prices. 

This is in defiance of everything known about government; all of the paperwork and bureaucracy built into the system now is due to the government. And if you put a cap on drug prices, you put a cap on discovery. Companies simply won't produce drugs that currently cost $1 billion and 12 years to get to market, with a success rate of 1 out of 5,000. 

Yet the authors claim that 26 million more people could be insured and still save money. The public is understandably jaded by miracle economic claims, given the terrible financial results for the ACA so far. The authors insist that most Americans want a single-payer system but most Americans would also repeal the 14th and 19th amendments if you ask them - because most don't know what they really are.