Into the idea vacuum left when Republican plans to dismantle Medicare blew-up in their faces, leaps our own caped crusader, Bernie Sanders, to boldly go where DC Dems fear to tread:  Single-Payer!

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) announced today that he introduced legislation to provide health care for every American through a Medicare-for-all type single-payer system.

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) filed a companion bill in the House to provide better care for more patients at less cost by eliminating the middle-man role played by private insurance companies that rake off billions of dollars in profits.

The twin measures, both called the American Health Security Act of 2011, would provide federal guidelines and strong minimum standards for states to administer single-payer health care programs.

Observing the U.S.’s miserable standing as

the only major nation in the industrialized world that does not guarantee health care

Senator Sanders points out that this parsimony has only served to earn us the twin distinctions of having not only one of the most costly healthcare “systems” in the world, but one that doesn’t even begin to deliver results on a par with those who spend far less.

Supporting the Sanders-McDermott act are labor voices like the AFL-CIO, National Nurses United and International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers.

Citing some damning statistical evidence of our failure as a country to provide even basic care to many millions of Americans in need, the Senator had this to say:

Under the current health care system, 45,000 Americans a year die because they delay seeking care they cannot afford.  Health care eats up one-fifth of the U.S. economy, but we rank 26th among major, developed nations on life expectancy and 31st on infant mortality.

He points out that Americans pay, on average, twice as much as Canadians and Europeans for exactly the same drugs; and that much of this inflated cost is due to the drug companies own spendthrift management and compensation practices.

Sanders did not forget to mention the landmark effort by Vermont lawmakers to move our state forward toward a single-payer system, thereby providing a model for the rest of the country.

Amid the chaos and cynicism of Congressional politics, it does my heart good to read of Bernie still shooting out those arrows of lightning clarity.