The dangerous allure of bashing 'Medicare for All'

The usually reliable Trib pundit Steve Chapman completely mis-interpreted and mis-characterized the health care debate in his post 'The dangerous allure of 'Medicare for All'. What is particularly disturbing is Chapman's imagined belief Democrats are self destructing in coming out for universal heath coverage. He implies Obamacare (ACA), which provided health insurance to 17 million formerly uninsured, is a sensible system in sync with the American people, due to its being "an incremental, cautious program to provide insurance to more people, falling short of universal coverage." Wrong. 

The ACA fell long, covering just 27 million of the 44 previously uninsured precisely because it was incremental and cautious. More than that, it was a disastrous compromise Democrats were saddled with by a cruel Republican party determined to keep the private health insurance industry earning tens of billions yearly while tens of millions continue to go bankrupt, suffer degraded health and yes, die at private insurers' hands and their congressional enablers. Millions believed the heartless Republicans lies which greatly compromised the universal coverage Obama and the Democrats proposed in 2009. Now, instead of merely being satisfied with the baby steps taken to lift up the worst health care delivery system in the industrialized world, our populous is in tune with the Medicare For All Democratic presidential contenders. A recent Reuters survey had Medicare For All favored by 70% of respondents, with 85% of Democrats and a surprising 52% of Republicans on board. A Gallup poll revealed 71% of Americans rightly believe our health care system is "in a state of crisis".

I realize libertarian Chapman has an aversion to government supported universal health care. Had he been commenting about FDR's proposed Social Security Act in 1935 he likely would have titled his post, 'The dangerous allure of Social Security For All".