Fahrenthold similarly claims Sanders’s plan for a single-payer system would put health care under the “control” of government.

But health care is already largely financed through government subsidies—only they’re flowing to private for-profit health insurers that are now busily consolidating into corporate leviathans. Anthem’s purchase of giant insurer Cigna will make it the largest health insurer in America; Aetna is buying Humana, creating the second largest, with 33 million members.

Why should anyone suppose these for-profit corporate giants will be less “controlling” than government?

What we do know is they’re far more expensive than a single-payer system. Fahrenthold repeats the charge that Sanders’s health care plan would cost $15 trillion over 10 years. But single-payer systems in other rich nations have proved to be cheaper than private for-profit health insurers because they don’t spend huge sums on advertising, marketing, executive pay and billing.

So even if the Sanders single-payer plan would cost $15 trillion over 10 years, Americans as a whole would save more than that.

Fahrenthold trusts the “market” more than he does the government. But he overlooks the fact that government sets the rules by which the market runs, such as whether health insurers should be allowed to consolidate even further, or how much of a “charitable” tax deduction wealthy donors to private universities should receive, and whether they should get the deduction if they attach partisan conditions to their donations.

The real choice isn’t between government and the “market.” It’s between a system responsive to the needs of most Americans or one more responsive to the demands of the superrich, big business and Wall Street—whose economic and political power have grown dramatically over the last three decades.

This is why the logic of Sanders’s ideas depends on the political changes he seeks. Fahrenthold says a President Sanders couldn’t get any of his ideas implemented anyway because Congress would reject them. But if Bernie Sanders is elected president, American politics will have been altered, reducing the moneyed interests’ chokehold on the public agenda.

Fahrenthold may not see the populism that’s fueling Bernie’s campaign, but it is gaining strength and conviction. Other politicians, as well as political reporters, ignore this upsurge at their peril.