This Chart Explains How Democrats Will Kill Your Current Health Coverage

This week, Democratic presidential candidates will gather in Miami for their first debates of the 2020 campaign cycle. Health care, including Sen. Bernie Sanders’ single-payer scheme, will surely serve as a prime point of contention.

More candidates who want to appear more moderate, such as former vice president Joe Biden, might try to contrast themselves with Vermont’s socialist senator. Because Biden and others instead want to allow people to buy into the Medicare program—the so-called “public option”—they will claim that individuals who like their current health coverage need not fear losing it.

Don’t you believe it. A chart by the Lewin Group demonstrates the damage that even this “moderate” option would have on private health insurance.

In an April 2009 study, Lewin concluded that within one short year, a government-run health plan would eliminate the private coverage of 119.1 million individuals—two-thirds of those with employer-provided insurance:

Democrats’ proposals for a government-run health plan have slightly different details, but they share several characteristics that explain this massive erosion of private health coverage. First, most of the plans receive dollars from the Treasury—seed funding, funding for reserves, or both. These billions of taxpayer dollars, to say nothing of the possibility of additional bailout funds should it into financial distress, would give a government-run plan an inherent advantage over private insurers.