And the price tag of Bernie's single-payer bill would be . . . $3.2 trillion a year

That almost doubles the entire federal budget, but hey, the 1 percent probably have it sitting around under their couch cushions. The entire federal budget is just about $3.9 trillion. That's a lot of money. So you might think, hey, how much more could it cost to pay for the health care of everyone in the country? Or as some liberals like to ask: "If Canada, Finland and Norway can afford to guarantee everyone health care, why can't we?"

OK. Would you like to know the answer to that question? According to the Urban Institute, which ran the numbers, Bernie Sanders's "Medicare for all" proposal would add $32 trillion to federal outlays over the course of the next 10 years, or an average of $3.2 trillion a year. That almost doubles the entire federal budget. Some of the details:

National health expenditures for acute care for the nonelderly would increase by $412.0 billion (22.9 percent) in 2017. Aggregate spending on acute care services for those otherwise enrolled in Medicare would increase by $38.5 billion (3.8 percent) in 2017. Long-term service and support expenditures would increase by $68.4 billion (28.6 percent) in 2017. Together, national health expenditures would increase by a total of $518.9 billion (16.9 percent) in 2017, and by 6.6 trillion (16.6 percent) between 2017 and 2026. The increase in federal expenditures would be considerably larger than the increase in nation health expenditures because substantial spending borne by states, employers, and households under current law would shift to the federal government under the Sanders plan. Federal expenditures in 2017 would increase by $1.9 trillion for acute care for the nonelderly, by $465.9 billion for those otherwise enrolled in Medicare, and by $212.1 billion for long-term services and supports.

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In total, federal spending would increase by about $2.5 trillion (257.6 percent) in 2017. Federal expenditures would increase by about $32.0 trillion (232.7 percent) between 2017 and 2026. The increase in federal spending is so large because the federal government would absorb a substantial amount of current spending by state and local governments, employers, and households. In addition, federal spending would be needed for newly covered individuals, expanded benefits and the elimination of cost sharing for those insured under current law, and the new long-term support and services program.

You might consider it a mitigating factor that much of this spending would be a shift from current spending by state and local governments, employers and households. Why, it's not new spending. It's just moved spending! No. That doesn't make it better. It makes it worse. You have to understand that the reason Democrats want socialized medicine is because their big-picture goal is to transfer control of as much of the nation's GDP as possible to the federal government. In 2016, the entire gross domestic product of the United States was about $18.6 trillion. With this proposal, roughly $7.1 trillion of that would be usurped by Washington. That's an absolutely astonishing number. Traditionally federal spending has been around 20 percent of GDP. In the first few years of the Obama Administration it rose to 24 percent, as it had last done during World War II, before reverting back to its norm. Under this proposal, federal spending would skyrocket to 38 percent of GDP!

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Now it's true, for example, that employers who now spend on employee health care would no longer have to spend that money. But what they've have to do instead is pay the highest taxes levied in the history of this country, all so politicians and bureaucrats could make all the spending decisions about the health care of every individual in the country. And those individuals would also have to pay much higher taxes to cover all this. By the way, about that: We're now running deficits of more than $500 billion a year because we don't collect enough tax revenue to fund everything the federal government spends money on, particularly the health care programs that take care of the elderly and the poor. How exactly are we going to suddenly raise enough new tax revenue to cover a massive new expenditure like this? Are we really going to do that? Or are we going to run even bigger deficits as the cost of this increases for more than politicians want to admit it will? And how will the private sector recoup the capital that's taken by Washington to pay for this? You might say they'll recoup it out of the fact that they no longer need to spend as much on health care. But according to the Urban Institute's estimates, the nation overall will spend more on health care than it's spending now. That means whatever you're spending on health care now will be eclipsed by the new taxes you'll pay to fund the even higher health care spending we get under socialized medicine. No one can run the numbers on this idea and seriously claim the idea is worth serious consideration. But you'll notice I made two references to seriousness in that last sentence, which means it has nothing whatsoever to do with what's going to happen in Washington.