Contra Gateway Pundit (and Hot Air), I am not certain that Senator Bernie Sanders (Socialist-VT) actually meant to imply that the Democrats were going to destroy private health insurers. Given that he is in fact a socialist, it may be that being one has finally killed enough brain cells to make him not notice that he answered the question so poorly.

[Update: I'm reminded that video isn't universally accessible. Transcript, also via Gateway Pundit:]

FOX News analyst: But they’re afraid. Private insurance companies are afraid that they will be put out of business. So why shouldn’t they fight it?

Sen. Sanders: They should be afraid. Let me tell you they should be afraid. I think when they deny people health care because somebody has breast cancer a few years ago, when they throw people off of health insurance because people were sick and ran up a health care bill they have a right to be exposed, a right to be afraid.

Look, it’s not my fault that intellectually speaking being a self-identified socialist in this day and age is much like being a self-identified Flat-Earther*. It just is.  And it makes you do dumb things, like tell private insurance companies that the United States Senate is coming after them with a mad gleam in its eye.  Given that, true or not, this is precisely the impression that current Senate leadership does not want to create… well.  To use the terminology of the guy that the Senator spent the last eight years ineffectually fighting: heckuva job there, Bernie.

Moe Lane

PS: More seriously, please remember: no matter what happens with the health care plan, neither Senator Sanders, his family, nor his close associates will ever suffer from the more onerous aspects of it. Because while all animals are equal, some animals are more equal than others.

*Well, except for the former’s higher historical body count.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.