Democrats eyeing Medicare-for-all are trying to avoid the same trap Republicans fell into back in 2017 when they were trying to replace Obamacare.

The trap is this: a damaging analysis from the Congressional Budget Office, Congress’s official scorekeeper.

This afternoon, the CBO is expected to release a highly anticipated report on the potential structure and costs of transitioning the United States into a single-payer system. The report, requested by Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), will analyze a number of questions raised by Medicare-for-all proposals, including what services would be covered, what costs consumers would share, how much doctors and hospitals would be paid and how the whole thing might be paid for.

But Yarmuth notably didn’t ask the CBO for a specific cost-estimate of the Medicare-for-all bill proposed by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), which the House Rules Committee examined yesterday and which more than 100 members of Congress have embraced.

That score could be sizable — and probably would fuel charges from Republicans and the health-care industry that Medicare-for-all is an impossible and rash scheme that would jeopardize health care for millions of Americans. The Jayapal measure, which would grant every American a comprehensive health plan with very little cost-sharing, probably would cost more than $30 trillion or even $40 trillion over the next decade, many times the cost of the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

“There is no avoiding the reality that the Medicare-for-all price tag would not only destroy our current health care system, it would blow up our budget and devastate our economy,” the Budget Committee's top Republican, Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), said in a statement.

Democrats know well how CBO scores can be used as political ammunition. It was only two years ago that they glommed onto the agency’s estimates that GOP health-care bills would result in 22 million fewer people having health coverage. Over and over, they whacked Republicans with that figure until the whole repeal-and-replace effort crumbled.

The CBO report will keep Medicare-for-all on center stage this week, coming on the heels of yesterday’s five-hour Rules Committee hearing on Jayapal’s bill.

That hearing could easily have devolved into little more than a fight over government involvement in health care. But the panel’s nine Democrats mostly used it to raise detailed questions about the logistics of transitioning the country’s patchworked health insurance system into a single program run by the government.

Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) quizzed the witnesses on whether Medicare-for-all would result in doctor shortages because physicians would presumably be paid less.

Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) raised difficulties with paying for a single-payer system by hiking payroll taxes. “If we didn’t go into this with a clearheaded view of what this would mean, I think we’re doing a disservice,” Morelle said.

Rules Chair Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) wrapped up the hearing by saying that “some in the press and watching online have been surprised this was such a civilized and in-depth hearing.”

Even the committee’s four Republicans, who made clear they’re not on board with Medicare-for-all, praised the Democrats at times.

“You kept this focused and very civil,” ranking Republican Tom Cole (Okla.) told McGovern.

“I cannot support her legislation, but I support her,” Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Ga.) said at another point, referring to Jayapal, who was present for the hearing.

The hearing's seven witnesses mostly maintained measured tones. Two doctors, emergency room physician Farzon Nahvi and retired colonel Doris Browne, told lawmakers the country is already paying for care for the uninsured who visit emergency rooms -- and it's less efficient and more costly because they're not able to visit primary care physicians.

George Mason University economist Charles Blahous said he has estimated Medicare-for-all would add $32 trillion to $39 trillion to federal health-care spending -- but he agreed with Democrats that most of that would be offset by eliminating private health plans.

The most urgent Medicare-for-all advocate was Ady Barkan, a 35-year-old activist dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, who delivered his testimony through a computer because he's no longer able to speak.

“The ugly truth is this: Health care is not treated as a human right in the United States of America,” said Barkan. “On the day we are born and on the day we die, and on so many days in between, all of us need medical care. And yet in this country, the wealthiest in the history of human civilization, we do not have an effective or fair or rational system for delivering that care.”

Yet the lawmakers didn't brush over their differences. Cole called Jayapal's Medicare-for-all measure "a radical bill,” saying Democrats have “not told us how much this massive new program would cost, who would pay for it and how much taxes would have to go up.” Meanwhile, McGovern stressed that "health care is a right for all, not a privilege for the lucky few."

"That dispute was part of the subtext that played out in a small House hearing room as congressional proponents of Medicare-for-all put forth their moral, political and economic case," my colleague Amy Goldstein writes. "The hearing offered single-payer proponents their moments in the sun without necessarily moving legislation closer to becoming law."