Campaign Action
On Wednesday, Washington Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal is introducing the most comprehensive and ambitious Medicare-for-all legislation yet proposed. Her plan would transition the nation to a single-payer system based on a restructured Medicare in two years, providing universal access not just to health coverage, but to health care.
"We mean a complete transformation of our health care system and we mean a system where there are no private insurance companies that provide these core benefits,“ Jayapal said in a press call Tuesday. "We mean universal care, everybody in, nobody out." She's going for the fences with the Medicare for All Act of 2019, proposing an all-inclusive benefits package that is broader than any other country's single-payer system. It includes hospital visits, medical devices, primary care, maternity care, and lab services, as well abortion benefits, vision, dental, and, critically, long-term care. Out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs is the only additional cost for the patient. It would prevent employers from offering competing plans, sunsetting Medicare and Medicaid, though it would preserve the Veterans Affairs health system and Indian Health Services.
What the plan doesn't include is a financing mechanism, and that's on purpose. "Most bills don't have that when they're introduced, that comes later in the process," she said of a financing plan. "I actually think the question is not about how we pay for it, the question is where is the will to make sure every American has the health care they deserve and have a right [to]." That's the discussion that the nation should be having for the next two years.
Setting out this vision of expansion in detail is the right start. It's about the maximum we can achieve, if we decide to prioritize the health of the populace. It's a menu of what's possible from which a new Democratic administration and congressional majority in 2020 can start choosing. At this juncture, the vision is the thing, a vision this nation—ranked far, far behind the rest of the industrialized world in overall health—needs.