By now it should be clear to everyone that “Medicare for All” doesn’t really mean Medicare for all. In fact, it means getting rid of every health plan Americans know and are comfortable with and creating an entirely new, government-run health care system.

In the Bernie Sanders’ version, health care would be virtually free. But government would determine what care you get, when you can get it, where you can get it, and how you can get it.

By controlling physicians’ salaries, the government could make some services so unprofitable that no doctor would offer them. By controlling technology, the government might make some procedures impossible to obtain.

For example, in the private sector 24/7 access to a physician by phone and email is increasingly a reality for many patients, as are Uber-type house calls. Patients also are increasingly able to get medical consultations in their homes (instead of trips to doctors’ offices or emergency rooms) by means of a phone or laptop computer. Yet the current Medicare program doesn’t allow any of this.

And because of global budgets, patients may experience long waits for care—lasting months or even years—as they do in Britain and Canada.