Probably. And the left will let them have it. As long as they get their cut on the flip side.After being forced to fund the program for so many years? What would that prove?
This is why people feel justified in fighting back. It's exactly this kind of attitude that has created such a caustic political climate. Some people have concluded that the purpose of government is to bully your neighbors. We can do better.
Only in scope - single payer would take over the whole market, rather than just for seniors. But you're right, it's the same principle. This is why some conservatives, and most libertarians, are leary about safety nets programs in the first place. Especially those that 'partner' with 'private' industry. Even when they are, initially, narrowly target at helping the poor, they're almost always used as a wedge to socialize more and more of our economy.
Yes, it is a slippery slope. Today, we keep the elderly alive. Tomorrow, we in-crouch on your granddaughter's freedom by repairing the hole in her heart, with which she was born.
To write off an argument as a "slippery slope" fallacy, you have to show that the concerns are unwarranted. When people opposed Medicare, on the grounds that it would be used to justify socializing the whole market, they were accused of fearmongering and "slippery slope". But here you are, doing exactly what the 'fearmongers' predicted. Seems the slope is pretty slippery after all, eh?
My health insurance career started in june, 1966, one month before Medicare took effect. It took over 15 years for the Right to quite ranting about how we are all going to live in a communist world, and that it would go broke within 12 months.
i am prepared to hear the same song and dance for another 15 years under universal health coverage.
So, what's next, after health care?
Oh, I suppose that the Right will then demand another generation of fighters at $400 million each with which to blow our enemies up as they drive around the desert in their 1993 Nissan pickup trucks.
Sooner or later, we're going to have to admit that it's just two sides of the same coin. Why do you think the feds want health care so badly? Do you think, just maybe, that centralized control of health care could come in handy militarily?