Won't single-payer health care require higher taxes? (Yes, obviously.) And won't abolishing employer-sponsored insurance face opposition from some of the 160 million people happily on those plans now? (Almost certainly.)
At the debates, in post-debate spin rooms and on Sunday TV show interviews, the Democratic presidential candidates are asked these questions repeatedly as if they are "gotcha" questions. Then they duck and weave to avoid providing the honest but damning (affirmative) sound bite, instead offering some version of: I can convince voters they'd still come out ahead.
But in fact the real third rail of health-care reform -- whether we’re talking about single-payer, a public option or anything else -- is the question no one seems to be asking: Will you require doctors to make less money?