During a mostly positive post-debate interview with socialist Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) -- at one point he gushed over Sanders's applause line about Wall Street regulating Congress instead of the other way around -- MSNBC Hardball host admitted that ObamaCare was setting the country on the trajectory for "single-payer" health care, the sort of socialized medicine employed in Canada and the United Kingdom. Matthews hailed such as model as "simple" and "the most efficient" but then queried Sanders about how we might actually be able to pay for it.
For his part, Sanders simply said that "it comes from you not having to pay any private health insurance" and that "our dysfunctional system is the most expensive per capita in the entire world." Matthews failed to press any further and thanked his guest for coming on, insisting that he thinks Sanders was helped by his debate performance and will "tighten" the race in the polls.
MSNBC
Special Edition of Hardball
October 14, 2015; 11:35 p.m. EasternCHRIS MATTHEWS: OK, let me go to one thing. Because I think after all this ObamaCare, I think we're going to end up with a single-payer system at some point. It's just simple, it's most efficient.
Sen. BERNIE SANDERS: That's right!
MATTHEWS: How do we, where does the financing of the, right now if, you were probably a paperboy, you start as a paperboy, you have your first job at a drugstore. And by the time you're 65 or 70 you've worked 50 years to pay for your Medicare for maybe the last 10 years of your life. If you're a male, it's fewer, OK? How do you do it if you have health care for everybody their whole lives. Where's that money come from?
SANDERS: Well, first of all it comes from you not having to pay any private health insurance. You know, what has been very dishonest--
MATTHEWS: That works financially? That covers our health care?
SANDERS: We are spending, our non-system, our dysfunctional system, is the most expensive per capita in the entire world.
MATTHEWS: I agree with that.
SANDERS: Alright, so-- alright, I should probably go out and say hello to some of the other--
MATTHEWS: By the way, this is part of the spin room, thank you for coming.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, tonight. I think he got a lot of applause from his people. I think he's going to tighten the difference between him and Secretary Clinton. Everybody else around here disagrees with me...
