Ronald Reagan was right way back in 1964 when he said “We can’t socialize the doctors without socializing the patients.”

Unfortunately, Barack Obama still hasn’t learned that lesson. That means millions of Obama enthusiasts are in for a nasty post-November surprise when they eventually find themselves trapped in long lines. We know this because at a campaign event Monday, Obama said: “If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system.”

A “single-payer system” is Washington bureaucratese for a system where the federal government uses tax dollars to pay for health care and to regulate how it is delivered when, by whom, and to whom.