Bringing single-payer healthcare to America, the stealthier way

Talk about unsexy. Opening up the Medicare program to anyone who wants to enroll, a proposal that's long bounced around in Democratic circles, sounds pretty darn dull. It's tinkering at the edges of a broken healthcare system, changing the drapes while the house burns, right?

Not at all. The truth is that it's a back-door to universal coverage, a stealthy way to get what our political culture makes so difficult to obtain with a frontal assault.

The day you pass a law opening up Medicare enrollment to everyone who wants in, is the beginning of the end for our bloated, overpriced private healthcare system. Within ten years, we'd have universal, single-payer healthcare, with just a small percentage of Americans sticking with private insurance (like in the UK).

The reason is simple: when it comes to providing healthcare, private insurers will quickly get their asses kicked competing against a single-payer system on a level playing field.