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Liberals are wrong to think that opposition to health reform is a rejection of big government. If health reform consisted of extending Medicare to everyone, people would be delighted. There are millions of 64-year-olds out there who can hardly wait to be 65.

You know, for most seniors Medicare is their only form of health care.

Medicare provided guaranteed equal coverage, something that the private sector could not.

Medicare is a promise we made to seniors more than four decades ago. When President Johnson signed Medicare into law, one in three seniors lived in poverty. Half of seniors had no health coverage at all.

Before Medicare, nearly half of American seniors were forced to go without coverage because insurance companies were reluctant to insure them - making the chances of having health insurance as a senior the same as getting tails on a coin flip.

We all know there are problems with Obamacare, and Washington's implementation of it has been abysmal. But rejecting Medicaid won't fix any of those things.

When Medicare was first enacted in 1965, it provided coverage for hospitalization, doctor visits and surgeries, but there was no coverage for prescription medications.

People on the Left really want a single-payer system. They really want - so even the Left doesn't want Obamacare. They want single payer, and we want a market-driven, patient-central system.

If the goal of health-care reform is to provide comprehensive, universal health care in a cost-effective way, the only honest approach is a single-payer approach.

For 25 years practicing medicine, I never asked anybody if they were a Republican or a Democratic or an independent and asked if they had insurance or not. I took care of everybody.