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medicare for all
Medicare For All May Not Be as Far Away as You Fear
The pessimistic view that we are moving in the wrong direction sees only the waves at the surface. It misses the subterranean tremors underneath. If we fight, we can win.
Sep 10, 2026
Editor’s Note: The following is the third excerpt from Nancy J. Altman’s latest book, The Road to Medicare for All: A Call to Action (Routledge, 2026), now available for purchase wherever quality books are sold. Read the first and second excerpts published by Common Dreams here and here. As the United States continues to spend substantially more on health care than other wealthy nations but with poorer health outcomes, Altman’s book analyzes the dysfunction of the current system and sets forth the solution. “Medicare for All won’t happen without a fight,” she argues, “but it is a fight we can win.”
As policy-wise and popular as Improved Medicare for All is, the nation may appear to be as far away from enacting Improved Medicare for All as possible. During his first term, Trump did what he could to accelerate the privatization of Medicare. Unfortunately, his thumb on the scale in favor of privatized Medicare is not only back, but is on steroids.
Adding to the sense that the nation may be as far away from Improved Medicare for All as possible, the Republicans enacted legislation that is projected to cause 15 million people to lose their health insurance. Adding to the sense that we are nowhere near enacting Improved Medicare for All, the two prior presidential elections, in 2016 and 2020, saw Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), two leading champions of Medicare for All, lose in the primary to the more centrist candidate Hillary Clinton, in 2016, and Joe Biden, in 2020. Trump defeated Clinton and won a second term in 2024 against Vice President Kamala Harris. Though Harris did not mention the fact in her presidential campaign, she was an original cosponsor of the Sanders-authored Medicare for All Act.
Trump’s election to a second term, the Republican control of Congress (as these words are written), and a Supreme Court with two-thirds of the justices who are acting as Trump advocates rather than independent jurists appear to suggest that the nation is moving away from national health insurance. But it is crucial to recognize that today is only a snapshot in time. The pessimistic view that we are moving in the wrong direction sees only the waves at the surface. It misses the subterranean tremors underneath. The Republican cuts to health insurance are already putting a strain on rural and inner-city hospitals, as well as nursing homes. The nation is seeing hospitals close as a result of the enactment. Their closure, in turn, strains even those hospitals and nursing homes not directly affected by the cuts.
Improved Medicare for All won’t magically become a reality. It will take all of us who support it to fight for it, in small and large ways.
With the cost of health care rising and, with it, increased insecurity, a majority of the electorate are concluding that the nation is moving in the wrong direction. Perhaps even more significantly, it will become clearer and clearer that the current path is unsustainable.
Importantly, two action-forcing events requiring Congressional legislation are on the horizon. Social Security and Medicare Part A, by law, can only pay benefits if they have sufficient dedicated revenue to cover their costs. To avoid an automatic across-the-board reduction of around 20 percent of the monthly Social Security benefits received by more than 70 million beneficiaries, and to avoid hospitals no longer being reimbursed, Congress must act. However the precise dates shift over the next few years, Congress unquestionably will have to act in the next half decade or so, before the revenue is insufficient to continue to pay full benefits.
Those action-forcing events provide an opportunity. Because those action-forcing events will result in must-pass legislation, provisions that expand Medicare, as well as Social Security, could be included. To make that a reality, though, it is essential that those who support Improved Medicare for All are fully prepared.
Improved Medicare for All won’t magically become a reality. It will take all of us who support it to fight for it, in small and large ways. The wonderful news is that determined activists are currently working hard to make Improved Medicare for All the law of the land. Building a winning coalition and other steps are already underway.
It is imperative that a winning coalition is built strong enough to defeat those who will fight against Improved Medicare for All. Physicians have been extremely active politically since the United States first started to seriously debate universal health insurance at the start of the twentieth century. Initially, the American Medical Association, whose members in 1910 comprised more than half the doctors in the nation, endorsed the legislation under consideration. Individual doctors, however, strenuously objected and made those objections known through their state medical societies. As a result, in 1920, the AMA’s House of Delegates formally voted to reverse its support, and instead opposed the initiatives.
While the AMA has been a staunch opponent ever since, that may be changing. Though the AMA has opposed national health insurance for over a century, doctors have much to gain from it. The image of the self-employed family doctor who makes house calls is virtually an anachronistic image. Today, around four out of five physicians – 77.6 percent – work for corporations. Historically, doctors have expressed concern over government oversight and interference. More and more, though, physicians’ reality is that they now live under commercial insurance oversight and interference. Unlike elected officials for whom Americans vote and whose salaries are set and paid transparently from public funds, doctors have no say over who runs private insurance companies and how they are operated.
A survey of doctors conducted by the Chicago Medical Society found that 66.8 percent had favorable views of a single-payer system.
The doctors most active in support of Improved Medicare for All are the leaders and 25,000 members of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP). They have provided a clear and steady voice on the issue since their founding in 1987. In part because of PNHP’s sustained effort, doctors seem to be moving toward support for Improved Medicare for All. A survey of doctors conducted by the Chicago Medical Society found that 66.8 percent had favorable views of a single-payer system. In fact, when asked to choose between Medicare for All and an improved Affordable Care Act (colloquially known as Obamacare), the doctors chose Medicare for All by two to one!
The increasing support among doctors for Improved Medicare for All is likely in large part a response to how vexing and inadequate the current system is for all participants, including doctors. The increasing support for Improved Medicare for All may also reflect a more diversified pool of physicians. When Medicare was enacted in 1965, doctors were overwhelmingly white men, who tended to identify as Republicans. Accordingly, the AMA gave the majority of its campaign contributions to Republican candidates. Ninety-four percent of the medical students at that time were men. Only 2.5 percent of practicing physicians were African-American, generally having been trained in segregated settings. An even tinier 0.2 percent of medical students were Hispanic or indigenous at that time.
In contrast, women comprised 55.1 percent of the entering classes in accredited medical schools across the country for academic year 2024-25. That was the sixth year in a row that women made up the majority of medical school students. They comprised 54.9 percent of total enrollment. African-Americans comprised 10.3 percent of total enrollment, and Hispanics, 12.3 percent. In 2021, more than one out of four surgeons and other physicians – 26.5 percent – were foreign-born.
Led by PNHP, advocates of Improved Medicare for All must have a focused strategy geared toward physicians to solidify the support of doctors, with the goal of converting the AMA from a force in opposition to a force in support. With a focus on improving the quality of medical practice while compensating its providers adequately, along with improving Medicare and extending it to everyone, the goal for supporters of Improved Medicare for All should be to convince doctors to become a force for its enactment.
Physicians have been perhaps the hardest opponent to overcome in the past, because of the extremely close relationship they have had historically with their patients, who rely on their doctors when their lives are literally on the line. When doctors give patients advice, those words carry enormous weight, even if the advice is about whether universal health insurance would lead to better or worse health care. If physicians tell their patients the proposed legislation will harm their practice and therefore their patients’ health care, that is influential.
While attaining the support of the AMA can likely be achieved with concerted effort particularly and primarily by physicians themselves and would be extremely valuable, that support is not essential. After all, Medicare was enacted despite the AMA’s strong opposition. Moreover, while doctors historically have been extremely influential with their patients about health policy, and they remain so, the need to change doctors because they are no longer in-network and the increasing reliance on teams of healthcare providers, including nurses, nurse practitioners, and physicians’ assistants, have increased the influence of nonphysician providers.
Nurses are another key group, and fortunately they have been leading the fight for Improved Medicare for All. Unlike the AMA, National Nurses United (NNU), the largest professional association of registered nurses, with 225,000 members nationwide, has been advocating for Improved Medicare for All for decades, with determination and effectiveness.
Following the lead of the AMA, the American Hospital Association (AHA), which represents nearly 5,000 hospitals, has opposed the last century of efforts to enact national health insurance. Improved Medicare for All, with its guaranteed payments to providers, its ability to incentivize healthcare providers to practice where the need is highest, and its ability to use tax dollars to subsidize the most at-risk hospitals, is a solution. Though the AHA does not yet support Improved Medicare for All, advocates may be able to persuade individual hospital administrators and, over time, the AHA itself to recognize the advantages of Improved Medicare for All and join the effort.
Another powerful group that started as supportive in the early years but then quickly switched were employers, who worried about the cost to them and the potential government interference in what they considered their independent authority. Though they still oppose it today, they might be persuaded of its value to them because healthcare costs have grown so substantially, and the lack of universal national health insurance puts them at a competitive disadvantage to their foreign counterparts.
Most companies are primarily focused on the cost of health care and, therefore, should be open to Improved Medicare for All, if they are convinced it would reduce their costs. There are some industries, though, that have an overwhelmingly strong stake in the current inefficient, costly system. Pharmaceutical manufacturers, pharmacists, and their associations have been aggressive parts of the opposition from the beginning. Another opponent has been the insurance industry. Neither pharmaceutical companies nor health insurance companies are likely to be convinced to end their opposition to Improved Medicare for All. Pharmaceutical companies take advantage of the bloated system to make extraordinary profits. Under Improved Medicare for All, the pharmaceutical industry will still make profits. Price gouging, however, will stop. Similarly, health insurance companies, for which Improved Medicare for All is an existential threat, will fight as hard as possible.
Health care is a matter of life and death for virtually all of us at some point in our lives.
Those monied interests must be defeated – no easy task given their vast resources. As powerful as they are, history shows that they can be beaten. They can be defeated, if the electorate is engaged and determined. The way to defeat those stakeholders that cannot be convinced of the benefits of Improved Medicare for All is with ongoing motivated action at both the grassroots and grasstops levels. The strong antipathy to commercial health insurance, exposed by the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, reveals that the public may be ready to fight persistently, relentlessly, and effectively for accessible, affordable, high-quality health care for all.
History reveals that Americans’ support for national health insurance is generally widespread and strong at the start of the public push, likely because the need is so great, but that support can easily be shaken. Polling shows that support for Improved Medicare for All is susceptible to opposition messaging that invokes fear of loss and danger. That is not surprising, because health care is a matter of life and death for virtually all of us at some point in our lives. The challenge will be to keep people motivated and not swayed by half-truths and lies, which history demonstrates opponents are willing to deploy. The uber-wealthy want to defeat anything that will increase their costs and reduce their wealth, even by a little. They will seek to scare the American people to retain the status quo. Obviously, fear of failing to obtain adequate health care when needed is an extremely powerful fear that can be exploited.
A key player in maintaining the active support of the American people is organized labor. Studies show that union members are more likely to vote, to volunteer for candidates, and to be influenced by their union leadership in political matters generally. Importantly, they remain a counterweight to the corrosive power of self-interested billionaires and multinational corporations. While organized labor can be counted on, it does have concerns that should be addressed. These include the fact that in negotiating for the generous healthcare plans their members enjoy, they had to trade away current compensation. Moreover, some workers involved in the administration of the current wasteful system will lose employment as a result of the greater efficiency of Improved Medicare for All. Both of those concerns should be addressed as part of the fight for Improved Medicare for All. Both issues are discussed in greater detail in the next chapter, which focuses on the counterattack.
A crucial part to winning the fight for Improved Medicare for All is extremely careful messaging to strengthen the commitment and effort of supporters and to win over those who may be skeptical.
As part of the effort to enact Improved Medicare for All, advocates must be an active part of the fight for workers’ rights to unionize and build union strength. In addition, advocates must employ a careful strategy, in addition to relying on unions, to convince the American people to fight for Improved Medicare for All.
Using the right messaging is key. While the majority of Americans favor Improved Medicare for All, polling indicates that the support can be shaken simply by the way the issue is framed. For example, while 63 percent have a positive reaction to the phrases “Medicare for all,” and “Universal health coverage,” that reaction drops to 49 percent when the phrase is “Single-payer health insurance system,” and 43 percent when the proposal is called “Socialized medicine.” People’s opinions can change dramatically depending on what is emphasized. When those polled are told that Medicare for All will increase their taxes, support drops to just 37 percent. When, though, they are told there will be no premiums and out-of-pocket costs will be reduced, support increases to 67 percent. Indeed, when those polled are told that the proposal guarantees health care as a right for all, support jumps to 71 percent.
This means that a crucial part to winning the fight for Improved Medicare for All is extremely careful messaging to strengthen the commitment and effort of supporters and to win over those who may be skeptical. While the facts are important and strongly on the side of advocates of Improved Medicare for All, history teaches that winning must include effective messaging that is repeated frequently.
Careful strategizing and messaging are especially crucial with respect to older Americans who are Medicare beneficiaries or are about to become so. Seniors have, on average, the greatest need for health care and are the most reliable voters. History shows that they generally pay keen attention to conversations about retirement security and health care. Older Americans were key to the enactment of Social Security in 1935 and its improvements ever since. They were also key to the enactment of Medicare in 1965. History also reveals, though, that the deployment of fear tactics targeted toward seniors can be effective, unfortunately. Consequently, it is vital that proponents of national health insurance have a systematic strategy with respect to seniors, including careful messaging.
In particular, the name Medicare for All may be a two-edged sword. The name presumably tests so well because Medicare, having completed its 61st year, is widely known and understood. Virtually all Americans know people who currently are covered by Medicare and appropriately expect to be covered themselves one day, if they aren’t currently. Consequently, it is harder to demonize as something scary, foreign, and potentially dangerous.
As important as the enactment of Medicare was, both in its own right and as a first big step toward Improved Medicare for All, its creation established a part of the population that might believe that they have something to lose by its expansion to others. Opponents can and have played on the fear that expanding Medicare to the entire population will dilute it and endanger it. For this reason, it may be prudent to always call the proposal, as this book does, Improved Medicare for All.
Starting with the word, “improved” subtly emphasizes that it will benefit those currently on Medicare. The improvements make the proposal a winner for current beneficiaries. It will eliminate all of their out-of-pocket costs. Its long-term care coverage will be a lifesaver for one out of every three seniors and their families. That coverage of long-term care will end the need for seniors to spend all of their assets to qualify for Medicaid and the care they need. Instead, it will allow seniors to pass on whatever savings they have accumulated to their children and grandchildren. Moreover, simply the knowledge of that coverage will provide everyone with greater peace of mind.
For those who today have traditional Medicare, Improved Medicare for All will provide them with hearing, vision, and dental services. And it will free everyone from the complicated sign-up process that current Medicare enrollees must wade through for prescription drug coverage, Medigap coverage, and, for increasing numbers, the erroneously-named Medicare Advantage. In that regard, though, supporters must have a strategy for those who are enrolled in Medicare Advantage. The ending of Medicare Advantage is particularly challenging to message, because it is extremely popular at least until people get seriously ill, when its extra benefits are of less concern and its narrow network of providers and deny/delay tactics are life-threatening. How to message Medicare Advantage, as well as messaging more generally to seniors, is dealt with in greater detail in the next chapter. The basic point, though, is that messaging specifically aimed at reassuring and enlisting seniors must be a key part of a winning strategy.
Fundamentally, advocates must be astute about employing the most effective messaging. The issue should be constantly polled and the messaging refined, as part of an overarching strategy and game plan. The bottom line, though, is that a winning strategy must include careful messaging that is snappy and compelling, but brief. The messaging must be used repeatedly, consistently, and widely.
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Trump, Who Calls Medicare for All Too Expensive, Vows $5,000 to Every US Adult—If GOP Wins Midterms
"Yeah, just like we got a $2,000 tariff refund, a 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a 500% cut in prescription drug prices, $2 gas."
Sep 10, 2026
US President Donald Trump pledged on Wednesday to send every American adult a $5,000 check if Republicans keep control of Congress in the upcoming midterm elections, a promise that was widely seen as a desperate ploy to distract from a flagging economy and the destructive impacts of the Iran war.
“If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000," Trump declared in his address to the GOP's midterm convention in Dallas. The president, who recently railed against Medicare for All as too costly, called his proposed payment "the Trump Dividend," but did not mention its potential price tag. Snap estimates indicate the checks, which would require congressional approval, would likely cost more than $1.3 trillion—close to the size of the discretionary federal budget.
Warren Gunnels, staff director for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—the leading Medicare for All champion in Congress—derided Trump's promise by comparing it to other campaign pledges that have not materialized.
"Yeah, just like we got a $2,000 tariff refund, a 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a 500% cut in prescription drug prices, $2 gas, oh wait…what?" Gunnels wrote on social media.
"Here is my promise, if the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the U.S Senate, both of them...because of our tremendous strength and success economically I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000." pic.twitter.com/Iy7OVq5vpk
— CSPAN (@cspan) September 10, 2026
Trump's midterm pledge came days after he responded dismissively to a reporter's question about Medicare for All, which would provide every person in the US with comprehensive health coverage at a lower cost overall than the current, privatized system.
The president falsely claimed that a single-payer system would cost "the entire budget of the whole country." But a recent study by researchers at Yale University estimated that Medicare for All would save the US roughly $1 trillion per year in national healthcare expenditures while also saving more than 114,000 lives annually.
Trump also suggested earlier this year that the federal government can't afford to pay for childcare and other programs because "we're fighting wars."
A recent analysis by the Joint Economic Committee found that the average household in the US has had to pay an additional $3,800 on energy and other essentials since the start of Trump's second term, in part due to the president's decision to launch an illegal war on Iran.
The Watson School of International and Public Affairs at Brown University estimates that Trump's war on Iran has cost US consumers over $102 billion extra, combined, on gas and diesel fuel.
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Medicare for All Also Means This: An Improved, Expanded Medicare
The wrong question is how can we afford Improved Medicare for All. Rather, the right question is how can we afford not to enact it.
Sep 08, 2026
Editor's Note: The following is the second excerpt from Nancy J. Altman's latest book, The Road to Medicare for All: A Call to Action (Routledge, 2026), now available for purchase wherever quality books are sold. Read the first excerpt published by Common Dreams here. As the United States continues to spend substantially more on health care than other wealthy nations but with poorer health outcomes, Altman's book analyzes the dysfunction of the current system and sets forth the solution. "Medicare for All won’t happen without a fight," she argues, "but it is a fight we can win."
Imagine having more money in your pocket. Imagine being able to see any doctor you want without checking whether the provider is in your network and covered by your insurance. Imagine having more time with your doctor and, at the end of the appointment, simply walking out the door without having to take out your wallet or even ask what you owe for the visit. Imagine being free of filing insurance claims. Imagine being able to simply get any medicine your doctor prescribes without discovering it is exorbitantly expensive and asking your doctor what, if anything, they can prescribe that is covered by your insurance. Imagine no such thing as medical debt. Imagine simply getting the care, procedures, hospital stays, therapies, and medications your doctor prescribes with your only focus and thought being on how to restore and optimize your health. That is what you will experience.
Where is that destination? It is tantalizingly close. In fact, those who, on average, have the greatest medical needs—seniors and people with disabilities—are already almost there. Medicare, having recently celebrated its 61st anniversary, is well known to Americans. Most people are either covered by Medicare or know someone who is. It already covers Americans from age 65 to the grave. To reach the destination that health care is a right, not a privilege, with all those imaginations a reality, it has to be extended back to the cradle and improved, so that its coverage is completely comprehensive and available without premiums, co-payments, co-insurance, or deductibles. (To be clear, the destination is the expansion of traditional Medicare, not privatized Medicare—the deceptively named Medicare Advantage—whose serious shortcomings are discussed throughout this book.)
As important as Medicare is... it should be improved.
Medicare, which currently covers only seniors and people with disabilities—those who, on average, have the highest healthcare costs—does so more efficiently, comprehensively, and fairly than commercial insurance does, or indeed can. Medicare is the most important birthday gift those turning age 65 get. Too many Americans in their late fifties and early sixties lack adequate health insurance and desperately seek to hang on until they reach that special birthday that brings Medicare. As important as Medicare is, though, it should be improved. As Chapter 3 explains, soon after Medicare was enacted and expanded to people with disabilities, the most powerful forces organized against it. They succeeded in stopping further expansion of its coverage and the services and treatment it provides. They also stood in the way of reducing the costs of those it covers.
On the road to Improved Medicare for All, traditional Medicare should be expanded to cover all essential services. As the nation is driving toward Improved Medicare for All, traditional Medicare should be expanded to cover all safe and effective prescription drugs, also. Under the current system, without Medicare simply covering all safe and effective prescription drugs automatically at no cost, beneficiaries must repeatedly answer the following impossible, ludicrous questions: What illnesses will you contract next year? What medications will your doctor prescribe to treat those yet-to-be-contracted illnesses? Only if you know the answers to those unanswerable questions, can you intelligently decide, in today’s dysfunctional system, which insurance plan has the right drug formulary or list of covered drugs at a price you can afford.
Expanding traditional Medicare to cover all prescription drugs will mean that people can fill all of their prescriptions without worry about their cost. In addition, Medicare should be expanded to cover long-term care—both care at home and in nursing homes.
If Medicare were expanded to cover in-home services and supports as well as nursing home care for those who had no other alternatives, people who were able could age at home, as most want, with the security to know that they would not be a financial burden to those they love. An expanded Medicare for All would meet Americans’ needs today and their unforeseeable needs in the future. As it does today for seniors who have traditional Medicare, it would pool risk among everyone so that everyone is protected; people with costly and complex medical conditions would not be saddled with huge costs.
Under today’s patchwork system, out-of-pocket costs in the form of deductibles, co-pays and co-insurance force people into the arms of commercial insurance, whether they like it or not. Those with traditional Medicare must buy, if they can afford it, private supplemental insurance, colloquially known as Medigap, since traditional Medicare lacks an overall cap on out-of-pocket expenses. Those who can’t afford Medigap may be forced to purchase an inadequate Medicare Advantage plan which includes an overall cap, one more thumb on the scale placed by those who are hostile to single-payer health insurance.
With comprehensive coverage, without co-pays, co-insurance, deductibles, or premiums, there will be no need for supplemental, so-called Medigap, private insurance. We do not pay out of pocket for public libraries, schools, fire protection, or the military. Rather, those services are paid from taxes. We should not be required to pay out of pocket for health care, either. Like those other services, we should have universal, national health insurance, paid for completely out of taxes. The United States is the wealthiest nation in the world at the wealthiest moment in its history. It doesn’t feel that way to many, because so much of that wealth is concentrated in the hands of the very few. A fairer system of taxation which finances an Improved Medicare for All would allow all of us to share the wealth that all of us have created.
We do not pay out of pocket for public libraries, schools, fire protection, or the military. Rather, those services are paid from taxes. We should not be required to pay out of pocket for health care, either.
The nationwide network of Improved Medicare for All providers, which would likely cover all doctors and hospitals nationwide, would ensure that people can continue to get care from the doctors they know and trust. Everyone would be free to see doctors and use hospitals anywhere in the nation. There would be no restrictive networks that keep people from using centers of excellence and seeing the doctors they want to see, including the best specialists. Improved Medicare for All would ensure that everyone—people with costly and complex conditions, people who want good specialty care from doctors and hospitals they know and trust, people who need continuity of care, and those who are currently in excellent health—could get needed health care without financial stress or anxiety.
Improved Medicare for All is fully affordable. Given the unsustainability of the current system, as described in the last chapter, the wrong question is how can we afford Improved Medicare for All. Rather, the right question is how can we afford not to enact it. Relatedly, Improved Medicare for All will cost less than we pay currently. Consequently, the other correct question is not how are we going to pay for Improved Medicare for All, but, rather, how should we divvy up the savings!
Improved Medicare for All will save the nation trillions of dollars while covering everyone comprehensively. In addition to money saved, Improved Medicare for All will save lives. It will result in a higher quality of life for individuals and also a healthier population overall, generating greater productivity for the nation as a whole. Doctors will have more freedom and flexibility. They will be free from the micro-management of commercial insurance companies, concerned about turning a profit.
An Improved Medicare for All system will provide dependable income to healthcare providers. They can count on their bills being paid in a timely manner without the need to chase patients or, even more dispiriting, seek the assistance of loan collection agencies.
Part of the savings should go to doctors, nurses, and other providers to ensure that they are well compensated. They should do better under Improved Medicare for All, not just financially, but also in terms of job satisfaction and time to focus on healing, not paperwork.
Hospitals and those they serve will do better, as well. Improved Medicare for All can reduce physician shortages in underserved areas, often described as healthcare deserts, and help to reduce shortages in areas of medicine where they exist now or are projected to exist. Rural hospitals too often have limited staff without backup. The loss of a surgeon can cause the surgical unit to close, which, in turn, can have a cascading effect, ultimately resulting in the inability to receive care close by, quickly, in an emergency.
Despite all the advantages, Improved Medicare for All won’t happen without a fight.
Like the need to reimburse doctors fairly, in a timely manner, hospitals must be, as well. Whether for-profit, nonprofit, or governmental, hospitals want to remain state-of-the-art, with the latest equipment, and be fully staffed. Consequently, they need to cover their costs and ideally, maintain reserves. Under Improved Medicare for All, hospitals will have reduced costs along with more certainty and dependability of payments, free from charitable cases, which will become a thing of the past. In addition to fairly reimbursing hospitals and other facilities, the costs of maintaining, updating, and constructing them should be a priority, so that all communities are adequately served. At base, under Improved Medicare for All, hospitals, physicians, nurses, and other practitioners should be paid generously. They can and should be paid fully and on a timely basis for care given to every patient. Improved Medicare for All can and should be structured to ensure that providers have the ability to spend the time required to see patients.
In addition to all of the health and health-related advantages that Improved Medicare for All will bring, it can also usher in improvements unrelated to health care. They include a fairer federal tax system, together with reduced income and wealth inequality; more revenue for Social Security; an improved system of workers’ compensation, and more funds for state governments. Improved Medicare for All will provide intangible benefits for everyone, including reduced stress, less paperwork with the accompanying added free time, and, most importantly, greater peace of mind. All of those byproducts are explained at length in the book. They are just some of the fortuitous byproducts that will accompany the enactment of Improved Medicare for All.
Despite all the advantages, Improved Medicare for All won’t happen without a fight. The special interests will fight ferociously, but they will be no match for the hundreds of millions of Americans who will be benefited, as long as the public is engaged and active.
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Medicare for All: Where We're Going and How We're Getting There
Health care should be available to everyone in America as a right—automatic and free of charge when we need it. Rich or poor, sick or healthy, old or young, no matter where you live, everyone should have high-quality health care.
Sep 04, 2026
Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from Nancy J. Altman's latest book, The Road to Medicare for All: A Call to Action (Routledge, 2026), published today and now available for purchase wherever quality books are sold. As the United States continues to spend substantially more on health care than other wealthy nations but with poorer health outcomes, Altman's book analyzes the dysfunction of the current system and sets forth the solution. "Medicare for All won’t happen without a fight," she argues, "but it is a fight we can win."
In the early morning hours of December 4, 2024, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was gunned down outside the Hilton Hotel in midtown Manhattan in New York City. The CEO was on his way to the health insurance company’s annual investor conference. The police found the words “Delay,” “Deny,” and “Depose” carved into bullet casings at the scene.
The public reaction was swift and overwhelming. People took to social media to describe stories of mothers, fathers, spouses, children, and friends who had died from treatable illnesses, dead because UnitedHealthcare or other health insurance companies had either denied the life-saving care doctors had prescribed to their loved ones or had endlessly delayed approval of the lifesaving treatment.
Physicians posted stories of the hours they spent on the phone, seeking to convince insurance companies of the necessity of the care. The providers detailed spending countless hours advocating for their patients to insurance company doctors who had little or no expertise in their area of medicine but with the power of literal life or death to authorize or deny payment for the prescribed treatment. The frustrated providers recounted incidents of being on hold for hours and transferred among insurance executives in what felt like perpetual loops.
The United States is an outlier. Its health care is the most expensive in the industrialized world, while its outcomes rank at or near the bottom
When the treating physicians finally got through and were told they had to schedule a time to talk, the time for the so-called peer-to-peer conversation was solely at the convenience of the insurance company doctor, with no concern for the schedule of the treating physician. One doctor talked about a particular insurance company that told doctors they would get a call back but were not told when or from what number. They were told, though, that if they didn’t answer, the claim would be denied.
Then came the denials. UnitedHealthcare and other insurance companies are not required to disclose their denial rates, but anecdotal evidence and lawsuits suggest that the rates are high. And denial is a life and death matter. Virtually all treatments are prohibitively expensive without insurance. One TikTok contributor described receiving six months of chemotherapy for her dangerously advanced, stage 4 cancer, only to receive a letter from her insurer saying it would no longer pay for the treatment. She explained in her post that the treatment cost $15,000 every three weeks and the alternatives she had tried before starting the current regimen had done nothing. Only the current treatment prescribed by her oncologist worked.
America’s Outlier Healthcare System: Expensive, Wasteful, Complicated, Deficient
The delay and denial of lifesaving care doesn’t happen in other wealthy countries the way it does here. The United States is an outlier. Its health care is the most expensive in the industrialized world, while its outcomes rank at or near the bottom… Thirty million Americans—almost 10 percent of the population—have no health insurance whatsoever. Millions more are underinsured. Though they have health insurance, it does not cover the care they need at a cost they can afford. Even those with supposedly adequate coverage often have high deductibles, causing them to delay care until their health issues are too severe to ignore. The problem is that in the United States, health care is implicitly treated like a commodity, like the latest iPhone or simply a service, like plumbing or electrical work in a home. Of course, health care is not just another commodity or service. It is literally a life-and-death matter.
Like our court system, police and fire departments, public libraries, and our public schools, high-quality health care should be available to everyone in America as a right—automatic and free of charge when we need it.
Unlike the government, which has the power to tax, can control its currency, and is not going out of business, companies can only stay in business if they turn a profit. That means that health insurance corporations must ensure that they don’t pay out more in benefits than they collect in premiums, and the premiums can’t be too large or their customers will go elsewhere. To make the numbers work and earn a large enough profit to keep shareholders happy, these companies must seek to entice those who are healthy and therefore not in need of health care, by offering benefits like gym memberships. They must carefully screen to cherry-pick the healthiest of the population and avoid covering those likely to need expensive care. If their enrollees do get sick, insurance companies can restrict what treatment patients are able to get by limiting the doctors and hospitals that are in-network. The companies can delay or even deny prescribed treatments, if they are expensive and supposedly uncertain of success, by requiring pre-authorizations. Indeed, insurance companies refused to insure anyone with pre-existing conditions, such as birth defects, pregnancy, and job-related injuries, until the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act prohibited that discriminatory practice designed to reduce expenses and bolster profits.
In short, private companies must cover their costs to remain in business. That too often translates, in the case of health insurance corporations, to denying payment for doctor-prescribed medical care. Like our court system, police and fire departments, public libraries, and our public schools, high-quality health care should be available to everyone in America as a right—automatic and free of charge when we need it. Rich or poor, sick or healthy, old or young, no matter where you live, everyone should have high-quality health care.
The Obvious Solution to Our Broken Healthcare System
The way for health insurance in the United States to be universal, affordable, and efficient is to make the federal government the insurer. Insurance is most cost-efficient and reliable when the risks can be spread across as broad a population as possible and when people cannot delay purchasing the insurance until the moment people know they are getting sick—a practice known as adverse selection. Only the national government has the power and ability to establish a nationwide, universal risk pool, with mandatory participation, making adverse selection impossible. Furthermore, when the federal government administers the insurance, overhead is minimized. Instead of high-paid CEOs wielding power over our health care, hardworking, modestly-paid civil servants are in charge. Instead of unaccountable private actors in control, federal employees, subject to transparency and oversight, are the administrators. Moreover, other costs, like advertising and marketing, are unnecessary.
Fundamentally, the government is not seeking a profit for shareholders or high salaries for executives. In addition, there is only one payer, producing more efficiency and less waste. Consequently, all of us, collectively through the government, can provide health care less expensively and more efficiently for everyone. [...] Profit should have no place in our healthcare system. Instead, there should be a single insurer that can pay for the most efficient care equitably and universally. We would spend less as a nation and have better health outcomes.
Profit should have no place in our healthcare system.
We know it works because an American institution has been paying for health care efficiently and fairly for over 60 years: Medicare. To be clear, the solution is definitely not the vastly inferior, misleadingly-named Medicare “Advantage.” […] The solution is traditional Medicare as it was designed and enacted in 1965, with it improved and expanded to everyone.
Medicare works. Americans overwhelmingly agree. After living with private health insurance or, worse, no health insurance at all, your 65th birthday is eye-opening. That birthday brings Medicare. Once you enroll in Medicare, you generally have no claims to fill out, no insurance companies to contact. It is comparatively simple.
The vision of Medicare for all is for everyone to have that simplicity and much, much more. In addition to expanding it to everyone, Medicare should be improved. Today, those with traditional Medicare who can afford supplemental private-insurance coverage (colloquially known as Medigap, because it fills in the gaps) generally must purchase it to control their costs. That will be in the rearview mirror under Improved Medicare for All. All premiums, co-pays, co-insurance, and deductibles should be eliminated.
The vision is for cradle to grave, comprehensive healthcare coverage for everyone in America, automatically. It means better protection for everyone at lower cost—including for those covered under today’s Medicare. Improved Medicare for All means going to the doctor of your choice, without first checking to see if your preferred practitioner is in your insurance network. With Improved Medicare for All, there is essentially one big network of virtually every doctor and hospital in America. The result? Guaranteed health care with the provider of your choice, anywhere you happen to be, without the stress of dealing with private insurance companies. […] So how do we make that vision a reality? Medicare provides protection to the grave. But not from the cradle. At least, not yet. We are the wealthiest nation in the entire world at the wealthiest moment in our history. We are much wealthier than we were in 1965, more than a half century ago, when we enacted Medicare for those aged 65 and older. We are much wealthier than we were in 1972, when we extended Medicare coverage to people with serious, work-limiting disabilities. Seniors and people with disabilities are the segments of our population who, on average, have the highest medical costs and the most frequent need for care. Covering the rest of us should be easy. The politics make it hard, but it is achievable. As the title of the book makes clear, we are on a journey.
With Improved Medicare for All, there is essentially one big network of virtually every doctor and hospital in America. The result? Guaranteed health care with the provider of your choice, anywhere you happen to be, without the stress of dealing with private insurance companies.
Every chapter contains aspects of the discussion of how we got here—the nation’s history of health care—in order to provide context for the following points: Chapter 2 explains that the nation was on a slow path toward a single-payer system (essentially Medicare for All) during the first three-quarters of the twentieth century despite the strong opposition of powerful forces. Then, though, as Chapter 3 details, the powerful forces became more organized and pro-active. They succeeded in stopping the push for Medicare for All in its tracks. Indeed, they did not just halt progress; they partly reversed it. Perhaps most damaging, mainstream Democratic political leaders lost sight of the destination. Opportunities were lost as a result. Chapter 4 explains that where we are now is a result of having failed to enact a single-payer system. It discusses the flaws and unsustainability of the current patchwork system. The chapter explains that Democratic leaders, in the face of the election of President Ronald Reagan almost a half century ago, gave up on the destination. That was unfortunate. It has led to where the nation finds itself today. Continuing down the current road, simply tinkering with the present system, is unsustainable. Exiting the current road and getting back on track is essential.
Chapter 5 explains what the right road is. It reminds us what our North Star was prior to 1972 and what it should be again. It lays out the vision of a single-payer Improved Medicare for All system. It also explains that questioning the affordability of Medicare for All is misguided. The correct questions are (1) since the new system will save money, how should we divvy up the savings; and (2) given the complete unsustainability of the current system, how can the nation afford not to enact Improved Medicare for All. Monied interests have prevailed for the last half century, but history is not destiny. Replacing our current Rube Goldberg-style, overly complicated, dysfunctional healthcare system with a straightforward, superior system of Improved Medicare for All won’t happen without determined effort. History teaches that the commercial health insurance industry fears losing its business and will fight every initiative that jeopardizes those profits. The pharmaceutical industry will fight any initiative that will cut its exorbitant profits. Historically, physicians and hospitals have opposed government-provided health insurance. Given the powerful forces arrayed against Improved Medicare for All, its failure so far to become the law of the land is not hard to understand. Indeed, because health care is so crucial to all of us, it is easy to convince us that we will lose, not gain, from Improved Medicare for All. It is not hard to scare us into thinking that it is something foreign, un-American, inconsistent with the nation’s values, and harmful for us as individuals.
Replacing our current Rube Goldberg-style, overly complicated, dysfunctional healthcare system with a straightforward, superior system of Improved Medicare for All won’t happen without determined effort.
The concluding three chapters answer all of these challenges and fears. They provide the tools, including a roadmap, to finally reach our destination. Chapter 6 highlights the politics and how a winning coalition can be forged. It discusses why the organizations that represent hospitals and physicians may be convinced to end their opposition to Improved Medicare for All and join the other supporters working to enact it. Whether that happens or not, it is crucial to understand that the forces arrayed against Improved Medicare for All have been defeated in the past and they can be defeated again. The response to the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO is but one example spotlighting that the American people are both united and ready. The answer lies in numbers, active involvement, and determination. To the extent the electorate is engaged and clear-eyed, victory is not only achievable; it is inevitable. Chapter 7 alerts supporters to at least some of the disinformation that opponents will use to stymie and depress those engaged in the effort. The chapter adopts the premise that forewarned is forearmed. Finally, Chapter 8 provides specific actions that readers may take to join the winning fight. Universal Health Care Is a Fight We Can and Must Win And a winning fight it will be.
It may appear that the worst time to engage in this fight is now, in the shadow of the November 2024 election, when Donald Trump was returned to office together with a Republican House of Representatives and Senate. The Supreme Court is controlled by conservative forces hostile to a domestically-active federal government, and the entire judiciary will be even more conservative after the first few years of a Trump presidency. Yet this is the perfect time.
As polarized as the American people currently are, we are overwhelmingly united in our support for Medicare, as well as Social Security. Expanding both programs can lead the way to re-unite the United States. Together, we will win. We must. Medicare for All won’t happen without a fight, but it is a fight we can win. It is a fight we must win. Our lives literally depend on it.
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Trump Lies That Medicare for All Would Cost ‘Entire Budget of the Whole Country’
As Trump-GOP healthcare cuts devastate millions, Yale experts have found that Medicare for All would save the US over $1 trillion and more than 114,000 lives per year.
Sep 02, 2026
US President Donald Trump railed against Medicare for All during an Oval Office event on Tuesday, falsely claiming the proposal would be prohibitively expensive and ineffective despite new research confirming it would save lives and cost significantly less than the corporate-dominated status quo.
The president's remarks came during an event touting his limited, voluntary, and secretive agreements with leading pharmaceutical companies, deals purportedly aimed at lowering drug prices. Trump again lied by claiming that his efforts are "much bigger" than Medicare for All, which would provide comprehensive health coverage to every person in the US for free at the point of service, eliminating premiums, copays, and deductibles.
Trump said that Medicare for All, which has not been tried at a national level in the US, "doesn't work," falsely claiming a single-payer system would cost "the entire budget of the whole country" and send taxes into the stratosphere.
Nancy Altman, president of the progressive advocacy group Social Security Works and author of the forthcoming book, The Road to Medicare for All: A Call to Action, told Common Dreams on Wednesday that "Trump is once again revealing that he lies about healthcare or is totally ignorant of it."
Total federal outlays were $7.04 trillion in 2025. According to a study published last month by Yale University researchers, a single-payer system like the one set out in Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) Medicare for All Act would save the US roughly $1 trillion per year in national healthcare expenditures, which totaled around $5.7 trillion last year. The finding was consistent with past research showing major savings under Medicare for All compared with the current privatized system.
"A universal healthcare system in the US would not require the country to spend more on healthcare," the Yale researchers wrote. "It would require it to spend less. Our results indicate that the existing budget is more than sufficient to cover everyone at lower total cost."
The study also found that Medicare for All would save more than 114,000 lives across the US each year by providing the tens of millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans with comprehensive coverage.
The researchers contrasted the life-saving impacts of a Medicare for All system with the deadly consequences of the unprecedented Medicaid cuts that Trump signed into law last summer. Experts at Yale and the University of Pennsylvania estimated that the sweeping Republican assault on Medicaid could cause more than 51,000 deaths annually as millions are kicked off the program.
"Numerous highly respected analyses show that improving Medicare and expanding it to everyone, with no premiums, copays, deductibles or coinsurance costs trillions of dollars less than what the nation now spends, while covering the entire population and saving lives," Altman of Social Security Works told Common Dreams. "The question isn't how will we pay for universal coverage, but how will we divvy up the savings."
The House version of the Medicare for All Act, led by Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), is cosponsored by a majority of the chamber's Democratic caucus—though it's opposed by the House Democratic leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York. The Senate version of the bill, led by Sanders, has 17 cosponsors.
"We already introduced the legislation. Now we need the political will to pass it," Jayapal said on Tuesday. "Healthcare is a human right. No one should go broke, or die, because they got sick."
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'Testament to the Power of the Progressive Movement': Ed Markey Beats Seth Moulton in Landslide
One Markey supporter called his victory "a rejection of the idea that generational change has to come at the expense of bold, progressive leadership."
Sep 02, 2026
Progressive US Sen. Ed Markey, a champion of Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, decisively fended off a Democratic primary challenge from his right on Tuesday, defeating Rep. Seth Moulton by nearly 30 percentage points in a contest that focused heavily on the incumbent senator's age.
Markey, 80, and his supporters—including prominent young Democrats such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)—rejected the notion that "generational change" necessarily means electing the youngest candidate in the race. Markey said in his victory speech Tuesday night that "generational change isn’t about compromising to do the small things better—it’s about fighting to do the big things best."
“Tonight is a testament to the power of the progressive movement,” Markey added. “It is a progressive movement fueled by young people, demanding more from their leaders, and it’s your voices that are the ones we need to hear right now.”
Moulton, a 47-year-old member of the conservative New Democrat Coalition, attempted to capture momentum that has propelled other younger candidates to victory over entrenched incumbents by making Markey's age and lengthy tenure in Congress—rather than his policy agenda—a central focus of Tuesday's contest. In a recent interview with MS NOW, Moulton removed ideology and policy from the equation completely, lumping Markey in with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) as well as elderly Democrats such as former President Joe Biden.
The Democratic representative, who opposes Medicare for All and attacked Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) from the right during his ill-fated 2020 presidential bid, also falsely claimed in a campaign ad that he and Markey "want the same things."
Moulton's age-centric message failed, according to Markey's backers, because voters in Massachusetts and elsewhere are hungry for progressive politics, not just younger politicians.
"We don’t want younger politicians with older politics,” Tyler Hack, the 21-year-old executive director of the Christopher Street Project, a trans rights group, said at a rally for Markey over the weekend.
Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, said in a statement that "tonight's victory isn't just a win for Ed Markey or for our progressive movement. It's a rejection of the idea that generational change has to come at the expense of bold, progressive leadership."
"Massachusetts voters understood the difference between changing the age of our leaders and changing the politics of our country," said Geevarghese. "Ed Markey has never settled for the moderate Democratic establishment or accepted the status quo simply because Washington said change was impossible. From staking his political capital on the Green New Deal, to fighting for Medicare for All, abolishing ICE, and taking on corporations and billionaires rigging our economy, Ed has consistently been willing to go where the Democratic Party needs to go—often before the rest of Washington gets there."
"That's the lesson from Massachusetts tonight," he added. "The future doesn't belong to the youngest politician in the room. It belongs to the people with the courage to fight for it."
Markey, who is heavily favored to win the general election in November, has said a new six-year Senate term would be his last.
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'Break Up Big Medicine': Taking On Healthcare Industry Greed Could Save US Families $6,000+ a Year
One expert said the options are to "watch the US healthcare system spiral into profit-driven chaos or finally treat the Big Medicine disease to create a healthcare system that puts patients and clinicians in control of care."
Aug 28, 2026
As millions of working-class Americans suffer from President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans' cuts to the already dysfunctional US healthcare system, a leading anti-monopoly group this week released a report with recommendations to restore "affordability and control to patients, clinicians, and communities across the country."
"The healthcare crisis didn’t happen by accident, it is the direct result of decades of neoliberal policy choices that handed more power to corporate healthcare giants while families paid the price," said Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project (AELP).
"The choice now is clear: Continue to watch the US healthcare system spiral into profit-driven chaos or finally treat the Big Medicine disease to create a healthcare system that puts patients and clinicians in control of care," she explained. "This agenda presents a roadmap for how to do it."
Harper and Emma Freer, AELP's senior policy analyst for healthcare, co-authored the new report, "Break Up Big Medicine," with contributions from a trio of other experts. One of them is Dr. Will Flanary, an independent ophthalmologist in Portland, Oregon.
"The US healthcare system, once made up of mostly independent practices like mine, is now dominated by Big Medicine behemoths—including private insurance conglomerates, Big Pharma manufacturers, pharmaceutical middlemen, megahospitals, and private equity-backed practices—whose only fiduciary duty is to executives and investors," he wrote in the foreword. "This makes it increasingly difficult to keep my practice afloat and uphold my oath, resulting in moral injury."
"So, I now have a second career as an advocate," who goes by "Dr. Glaucomflecken" on social media. "What my patients need most is bold policy reforms to break up Big Medicine and build a better healthcare system, one where they can access affordable, high-quality care and independent physicians like me can thrive."
The report notes that "between 2005 and 2025, the annual cost of employer-sponsored family coverage nearly tripled, from $12,214 to $35,119," US patients pay nearly three times as much for prescription drug prices as people in other countries, and "the United States spends more than $15,000 per person on healthcare each year—roughly one-fifth of our entire economy, and more than twice what peer nations spend, in return for worse patient outcomes on a variety of metrics."
Costs continue to rise, with The Wall Street Journal reporting last week that, according to benefits consulting giant Aon, US workers with employer-sponsored insurance are expected to spend an average of $5,297 on healthcare this year, or $388 more than last year. Another consultant, WTW, found that US employers expect their healthcare costs will rise 11.1% next year.
Meanwhile, six "corporate behemoths" in the sector—Cardinal Health, Cencora, Cigna, CVS Health, McKesson, and UnitedHealth Group—"now rank among the Fortune 15, making nearly $34 billion in annual profit," collectively, as AELP detailed Thursday. "Big Medicine now employs more than four in five US doctors," and practices must spend time completing, "on average, 40 prior authorizations per physician per week, time that would be better spent on patient care."
"Our current healthcare crisis is the result of several decades of federal policymaking by both political parties based on the flawed premise that empowering private insurers to ration access to healthcare, rather than addressing the underlying root causes of high prices, would effectively contain costs," the AELP report says.
The publication lays out a four-part "treatment plan" to save Americans $795 billion annually, or more than $6,000 per household: break up Big Medicine, bring down healthcare prices, build capacity, and bolster enforcement of existing laws.
The first section highlights how some solutions already exist in Congress, pointing to various bills, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Josh Hawley's (R-Mo.) Break Up Big Medicine Act, their Patients Before Monopolies Act with Reps. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.) and Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.), Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Rep. Val Hoyle's (D-Ore.) Patients Over Profits Act, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon's (D-Pa.) Take Back Our Hospitals Act, and the Corporate Crimes Against Health Care Act, introduced by Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-NH) and Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Merkley, and Warren.
The second section calls for standardizing and capping "healthcare prices across public and private payers using traditional Medicare reimbursement rates for inpatient and outpatient services and negotiated drug prices as benchmarks." It urges a ban on prior authorization, an end to patient cost-sharing obligations, investments "in public options that eliminate Big Medicine administrative waste," and passage of Rep. Rashida Tlaib's (D-Mich.) Medicines for the People Act.
The third section calls for investments in the US prescription drug manufacturing base as well as in providers, "especially safety-net hospitals in rural and low-income metro areas, independent medical and dental practices, community pharmacies, and primary care physicians."
The final section calls on Congress to "close loopholes that allow anti-competitive business practices, which Big Medicine uses to drive up prescription drug costs," specifically promoting the repeal of the 1987 safe harbor for pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and other pharmaceutical middlemen, and the prohibition of "price discrimination, spread pricing, self-preferencing, network discrimination, and sole-source or exclusive contracting terms across all payers." It further advocates for an increase in funding for antitrust enforcers at the Federal Trade Commission and the US Department of Justice.
"For decades, healthcare reform has focused on expanding private coverage and putting more money into a broken system while allowing corporate giants to consolidate power and drive up costs," said Freer. "Working families have paid more only to receive lower-quality care.
"Americans need a new policy paradigm that actually takes on the root causes of the crisis: consolidation, corporate control, and lack of competition," she argued. "This agenda is about moving beyond the status quo to build a healthcare system where patients come first, clinicians can thrive, and every American can afford the care they need."
The report comes amid renewed scrutiny of the president's "most favored nation" deals with Big Pharma, with Peter Maybarduk, access to medicines director for the watchdog Public Citizen, saying last week that "Trump has three kinds of drug pricing policy: fake, exaggerated, and not-real-yet, probably-won't-happen."
After pointing out on social media Wednesday that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in April agreed to publicize the deals for medicines listed on the direct-to-consumer website TrumpRx, and "months later, still crickets," Warren wondered, "Why should Americans believe this isn't just another Trump handout to fatten Big Pharma's pockets?"
Additionally, as Americans have started contending with the Medicaid cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed by Republicans in Congress and signed by Trump last year, as well as the GOP's refusal to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies, which has caused premiums to skyrocket, there have also been renewed calls for shifting the United States to a universal healthcare system.
A study published earlier this month by researchers at Yale University suggests the Medicare for All Act that's been repeatedly introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would save more than $1 trillion and over 114,000 lives annually.
"At a time when 15 million Americans are being thrown off the healthcare they have and 20 million Americans have already seen their premiums double, on average, as a result of Trump’s so-called ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ we need Medicare for All now more than ever," Sanders said in response to the study. "The time is now to end the greed of the big insurance and drug companies and pass Medicare for All."
David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect and the author of books including Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power, noted in his Thursday coverage of AELP's report that "while it's complementary to a Medicare for All approach, single-payer insurance is not mentioned."
"In tandem with moving toward a Medicare for All system, we have to address consolidation that is the cause of healthcare being so expensive, with degraded quality, and the squeezing of healthcare professionals," Freer told Dayen. "Otherwise we end up with something like Medicare Advantage for All, which would be disastrous."
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Don't Let the Word 'Socialism' Scare You, Progressives Just Want a Country That Works for All
When someone brandishes the word “socialism” like it’s a stink bomb, take a courageous look at the actual ideas—higher taxes on the rich; Medicare for All; or a raise for working people—being proposed.
Aug 28, 2026
The debate over capitalism vs. socialism often looks like a battle of cartoon caricatures: Monopoly Man versus the Marx Monster.
Across the planet there are countless flavors of capitalism and socialism, unique mashups of free markets and government policies. Into this muddle wade the right-wing ideologues who fear the red “socialist” demon hiding in every corner.
If Fox News existed in the 1950s, they would’ve labeled Republican President Dwight Eisenhower a socialist for taxing the wealthy and making broad public investments to expand homeownership, enable debt-free higher education, and build infrastructure and technology that expanded the modern middle class.
Yet, what do these labelers call modern-day China, a country that mints hundreds of billionaires a year and dominates global markets with private production? Is it socialist or capitalist?
All generations now understand that the old American Dream has expired, with 7 in 10 experiencing economic insecurity.
Meanwhile, social democracies, like Canada and the northern European countries, have progressive tax systems and strong social safety nets. Sweden, with its generous welfare state, has higher rates of entrepreneurship than the United States.
These countries also have higher rates of social mobility than the United States—meaning it’s easier for lower-income people to escape poverty and become stable. The American Dream, apparently, has moved offshore.
These welfare states, with their higher taxes on the wealthy, exist comfortably alongside healthy market economies. However, in the United States, whenever a politician proposes that billionaires pay their fair share of taxes so we make public investments in opportunities for everyone else, they are labeled socialist or even communist.
These criticisms conflate a set of policy proposals, most of them quite popular, with an economic system where the government owns the means of production. However, this well-trod attack doesn’t seem to be working anymore, especially for younger generations.
Younger voters see the grotesque inequalities of wealth and power that distort the economy and block opportunity for the non-rich. They witness how large corporations have captured Congress and blocked popular reforms to defend consumers and counter monopolies.
They watch with alarm as billionaire-backed private equity firms buy up healthcare facilities and squeeze consumers in every corner of the economy. They see how both major political parties have been captured by the billionaire donor class and failed to address stagnant wages and rising basic costs.
All generations now understand that the old American Dream has expired, with 7 in 10 experiencing economic insecurity. These folks still hope hard work could lead to a decent life—to own a home, take a vacation, pass opportunities to their children, and retire before they die. They feel the constant stress of knowing they’re one job loss, illness, disability, or divorce away from living in their car.
Without a strong party representing working people’s concerns, political realignments are happening in both parties. A new generation of progressives and a handful of self-described democratic socialists argue the economy should work for everyone, not just the billionaire class.
They believe new technologies—such as AI—should serve everyone, not just billionaire tech bros and their global conglomerates. They believe the government has an important role in expanding healthcare, blocking oligarchy, and breaking up big corporations.
They advocate for expanding affordable housing to aid people struggling to find decent housing in a hyper-speculative market. Instead of subsidizing private developers, they advocate for housing owned by nonprofit organizations, resident cooperatives, and—egads!—government entities, like housing authorities.
These progressives believe we should stop subsidizing the fossil fuel industry and end tax breaks to the Jeffrey Epstein class. They support investments to help us transition to sustainable energy, lower energy costs, and reduce climate disruption.
The right-wing pundits—and some so-called moderates, too—are hoping that when they trot out the “socialist” bugaboo, your mind will freeze and you’ll start frothing at the mouth. They’re afraid that you will ask why the current system isn’t working and wonder if there are alternatives. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
When someone brandishes the word “socialism” like it’s a stink bomb, take a courageous look at the actual ideas—higher taxes on the rich? Medicare for All? A raise for working people?—being proposed. There might be more common sense than you thought.
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Trump-Backed Darline Graham Bashes 'Government-Run Healthcare,' Glorifies Working While Sick
“Government-provided healthcare is a bad idea. I’d rather Americans work long, hard hours, not receive sick leave, and die young," said one critic, "is one hell of a message.”
Aug 26, 2026
The precise point Republican US Sen. Darline Graham was making was unclear Tuesday evening when she attacked her Democratic opponent, Dr. Annie Andrews, for supporting what Graham called "government-run healthcare" and then pivoted to the story of her parents' early deaths.
But some observers wondered whether the lawmaker from South Carolina, who took over the Senate seat of her brother, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, last month, was arguing for the continuation of a system in which many Americans can't get the healthcare they need.
Graham, who has worked at the state workforce agency and the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, spoke after winning a special runoff election against US Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC). She was endorsed by President Donald Trump and will now face Andrews, a pediatrician, in the November midterm election for a full Senate term.
Speaking to supporters, Graham criticized Andrews for supporting "bad idea after bad idea," including "government-run healthcare." Andrews has spoken out against the Republican Party's cuts to Medicaid and Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies. Her website states support for "policies like a public option that expand access to affordable healthcare for all South Carolinians."
Graham said she has "a different background and vision for our state," describing her childhood growing up "in one room in central South Carolina" before explaining her parents' personal experience with healthcare and working "long, hard hours to make ends meet."
Darline Graham: Government run health care…. bad idea after bad idea. Annie Andrews backs it all. I have a different background. My parents worked long, hard hours. If that were sick, they had to get up and go to work. My mother passed away when I was 11 and my father just over… pic.twitter.com/fvFCrmudhi
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 26, 2026
"We didn't take vacations," she said. "If they were sick, they had to get up and go to work, because if the doors weren't open, we weren't making money."
She then added, "My mother passed away when I was 11, and my father just over a year later," before saying she has "worked hard for the people of South Carolina" and understands "the struggles facing South Carolina families because I've faced them too."
Andrews responded on social media that Graham's "family suffered and died without healthcare and apparently [she] thinks yours should too.
"Call me crazy, but as a doctor, I believe there are few responsibilities more fundamental to government than keeping its citizens healthy and safe," she said. "No family should have to suffer simply because generations before them did."
Other observers were perplexed about the message embedded in Graham's story.
“'Government-provided healthcare is a bad idea. I’d rather Americans work long, hard hours, not receive sick leave, and die young' is one hell of a message," said journalist Ahmed Baba.
A "straightforward reading" of Graham's statement, said Matthew Sitman of the podcast Know Your Enemy, would point to a proposal that "more parents of 11-year-olds die."
Graham's official website does not appear to outline any healthcare proposal. The senator said this week that voters she has met around the state are "talking about the rising cost of healthcare and affordability," but declined to name legislation or describe any proposals for tackling the issues.
The healthcare advocacy group Protect Our Care found last week that the Republican Party's $900 billion in cuts to Medicaid and its decision to slash ACA subsidies have left 8 million people across the country without health coverage so far, affecting Americans in all 50 states.
In South Carolina, Protect Our Care said, 235,000 people have lost their ACA subsidies or coverage under Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program. Premiums have doubled for more than 587,000 South Carolinians in the past year, while 14 hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes have been forced to shut down or are on the verge of closing due to the healthcare cuts.
Healthcare facilities in the state are facing a $1.5 billion loss in funding and have seen a 26.9% spike in care that they are providing without reimbursement from Medicaid or other public programs.
"South Carolinians are dropping coverage they can no longer afford, delaying care, rationing medications, and living with the constant fear that an emergency could push them deeper into debt," said Protect Our Care.
Writer and engineer Hayden Clarkin suggested voters in the state may not be convinced by a "healthcare proposal" that appeared to amount to, "If you’re sick, you have to get up and work."
A 2020 poll by Data for Progress on behalf of the advocacy group Medicare for All NOW found that 77% of Democratic voters in South Carolina supported "expanding Medicare so that it becomes the primary insurer for all Americans."
Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) noted that should Graham win a full Senate term, she will benefit from the "government-provided healthcare" she had attacked as a "bad idea."
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'Utterly Unsustainable': Employer-Sponsored Healthcare Costs Set to Keep Surging
While Democratic leadership continues to oppose a Medicare for All system overwhelmingly favored by their party's voters, progressives point to studies showing that such a program will save lives and money.
Aug 20, 2026
US workers with employer-sponsored health insurance are expected to spend an average of $5,297 on healthcare this year, including premiums deducted from their paychecks, deductibles, and copayments, according to a new estimate from benefits consulting giant Aon reported Thursday by The Wall Street Journal.
That's $388 more than last year, and the pain is expected to intensify in 2027. According to a survey conducted by WTW, another consultant, US employers anticipate their healthcare costs will soar 11.1% next year. That could be the steepest increase in more than two decades, and would mark the fifth consecutive year of rising employer healthcare costs.
As the Journal noted, expensive cancer treatments and widespread adoption of weight loss drugs are among the factors driving up spending—and costs. For workers, that means larger deductions from their paychecks, higher out-of-pocket costs, and, for some, abandoning insurance altogether.
“Employers are telling us that this is utterly unsustainable,” WTW population health leader Jeff Levin-Scherz told the Journal.
Jason Wilburn, co-owner of Paul Wissmach Glass Co. in Paden City, West Virginia—which employs 35 people—said that the company has endured double-digit premium increases every year since 2021, with healthcare costs now accounting for 5% of revenue. That's a higher percentage than the company's margin of profit.
To cope, Wissmach Glass Co. increased its biweekly payroll deduction from $40 to $50 per worker, even though the company is still paying about 90% of the total premium. The increase has resulted in some employees deciding to drop their coverage.
“It’s frustrating and sad,” Wilburn told the Journal. “Something’s got to change.”
Democrats cited the report in a statement Thursday, noting that President Donald Trump and Republicans "have spiked healthcare costs for millions of Americans."
"First, they cut Medicaid by nearly $1 TRILLION—the largest cut to healthcare in history—to pay for tax cuts for the ultrarich," the party said, referring to the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by Trump last year. "Then, they refused to extend the enhanced Affordable Care Act premium tax credits, hiking premiums by an average of 58%."
"Trump and Republicans’ cuts have already forced 3 million people to drop their coverage, with more expected to drop coverage in the coming months as premiums are expected to see another double-digit increase next year," the Democrats' statement continued. "More than half of Americans already could not reliably afford healthcare in 2025—a five-year low—and nearly 1 in 4 American workers report staying in unwanted jobs just to maintain consistent health insurance."
“Donald Trump and Republicans’ endless cuts to healthcare have jacked up costs for millions of Americans," Democratic National Committee spokesperson Jaelin O’Halloran said. "Everyday Americans are dipping even further into their savings and taking on record amounts of debt to afford a trip to the doctor’s office or lifesaving medicine—and Trump doesn’t care."
"While Trump prioritizes his White House vanity projects and tax cuts for the rich, working families are pinching pennies to pay their medical bills or forgoing healthcare coverage because they can’t afford it—and they will hold Trump and Republicans accountable in November," O'Halloran added, referring to the upcoming midterm elections.
While progressives have long argued that the solution lies in decoupling health insurance from employment, Democratic leaders remain loath to advocate Medicare for All or other universal healthcare options. Just this week, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) reaffirmed his opposition to Medicare for All, a position at odds with 90% of Democratic voters surveyed in a new CBS/YouGov poll.
As Common Dreams recently reported, a recent Yale University study found that Medicare for All—as proposed in legislation introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.)—would save over 114,000 lives annually and $1 trillion per year in US healthcare spending.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) cited that study in an interview on Sunday in which he refuted Jeffries' stance.
“Medicare for All is arguably the most important priority,” Khanna said, calling for a vote on Sanders' bill. “It would save money, and it would save lives.”
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