Medicare for All – and Also a Pony
26th October 2026
Remember the old saying “There is no free lunch”? It was a popular phrase when I was young.
According to Google AI:
Science fiction writer Robert Heinlein popularized the acronym TANSTAAFL (“There Ain’t No Such Thing As a Free Lunch”) in his 1966 novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. …
Milton Friedman heavily used the phrase as the title of his 1975 book to argue against government-subsidized programs, price controls, and free-spending policies.
However, both then and now, the left’s favorite tactic is to promise free lunches in various guises, and then fail to deliver them. The hope is that the voting public won’t catch on. Here’s an example:
Democratic Senate candidates Troy Jackson (Maine) and Abdul El-Sayed (Michigan) have renewed the push for Medicare for All, a signature feature of Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign a decade ago. Now, as then, the issue has proven an effective vote-winner in Democratic primaries.
Among other things, “Medicare for All” makes use of the envy and anger of many in the younger generation towards the Boomers. They’ve got Medicare; why can’t we?