The Answer to Medicaid Cuts Should Be Medicare For All

Following the recent passage of U.S. President Donald Trump’s domestic policy agenda, there’s been a lot of discussion about how the bill will affect average Americans. One provision which has received a lot of attention in particular has been the proposed cuts to Medicaid.

Medicaid represents a crucial stopgap for working Americans, one of the few things keeping our healthcare system afloat as costs have skyrocketed. Cuts to the program could have devastating effects. For instance, many of the country’s rural hospitals (as well as nursing homes and community health clinics) rely heavily on Medicaid payments and could be forced to shut their doors without them. It’s estimated this could lead to thousands of deaths.

The Democratic Party has yet to come up with a viable alternative to this. Fortunately, there’s a solution. And it happens to be supported by the majority of Americans—embrace Medicare For All.

America is the only country in the developed world without a universal healthcare system. Our current model for care is bloated, wasteful, inhumane, and driven by corporate greed. According to a 2024 report by the Commonwealth Fund, the U.S. ranked last when compared with 10 other wealthy, industrialized nations on metrics such as life expectancy, preventable deaths, and access to care, despite spending by far the most on healthcare.

It’s essential that we transition to a system that prioritizes patient care over profit.

There are several reasons why America’s system is so expensive (high administrative costs, the government’s inability to negotiate drug prices), but one crucial reason is that we’ve opted for a patchwork system. America has four models for healthcare—one system for the workforce, one system for people over 65, one system for veterans, and no system at all for the roughly 8% of the country that remains uninsured.

Pretty much every other country has settled on one model for everyone, because it’s cheaper and less convoluted. That’s the sensible way of doing things. In 2020, a comparative analysis of 22 separate studies found that Medicare For All would save billions, if not trillions of dollars, for Americans.

Medicare For All is broadly popular, supported by the majority of the population, and affects everyone in the country. We know that it works and would do an enormous amount to relieve people’s financial burdens. The top cause of bankruptcy in America is medical debt. This program would also save tens of thousands of lives every year. If it were to pass, it might secure a voting base for the Democratic Party for at least a generation, the way Social Security and the original Medicare bill did.

It’s essential that we transition to a system that prioritizes patient care over profit. We must follow the example of every other developed country and guarantee healthcare coverage to all our citizens as a basic human right.