Medicare for All?

For your edification, an excellent letter, written to the New York Times, selected by the editors as a Times Pick:

Andy

HoustonAug. 3

Times Pick

It is very ironic that these social-Democratic ideas have become fashionable in the US almost a decade after they have entered the twilight in Europe. Germany has had a round of reduction of the welfare state, and so did Sweden - and those are some of the strongest European economies. France is trying unsuccessfully to do it for more than a decade, and Italy is stumbling on reform since the Cold War ended.

You want “Medicare for all” ? Stop using the Scandinavian countries as examples - those are small, ethnically and socially homogenous countries. Look at Italy - large, with mixed cultures and awful government-provided health care. You can’t get anything done unless you slip money under the table to the doctor.