In his famous radio address about socialized medicine in 1961, President Ronald Reagan pointed out that Members of Congress (and unions) supporting Medicare were using a:

“Foot in the door” strategy to create “a mechanism for socialized medicine capable of indefinite expansion in every direction until it includes the entire population.”

He was right.

Right now, nearly half of America relies on the government to pay for their health care. With more than 61 million seniors in Medicare and more than 77 million low-income people in Medicaid, these two behemoth programs cover approximately 44% of all Americans.

This makes reforming these entitlement programs politically difficult.

This is why another policy strategy favored by Democrats involves significantly expanding eligibility for Medicare and Medicaid or creating a “buy in” to these programs for people who aren’t eligible.

This is just the public option by another name.

The ACA was really just a government solution for a government-created problem, as it destroyed market competition by making it nearly impossible for smaller health insurance companies to compete. This left Americans with few options for private insurance.

If we want to keep any private options—and to keep our healthcare system innovative and responsive to people’s needs—we need to oppose any and all expansion of government health programs, even though, as Reagan warned, these expansions can so easily be disguised “as a humanitarian project.”