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single-payer
State-Level Single Payer a Good Step Toward Medicare for All
Will passage of a state-based program serve as an initial step towards a national program or derail the nationwide effort for a federal plan?
Jan 18, 2026
The consequences of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) are already apparent. Millions have already lost health insurance. Millions more face soaring costs.
Nevertheless, fierce political opposition to a national Medicare for All legislation remains. The only possible path forward is to enact universal health care programs in those states where the electorate will be receptive. To facilitate this process, the State Based Universal Health Care Act (SBUHCA) has been introduced into both the United States Senate (S. 2286) and House (HR. 4406). This bill establishes minimal standards for state-based healthcare delivery programs and codifies the transfer of funds for healthcare services from Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to states with state-based programs.
Over the past 60 years, repeated attempts to improve the quality and availability of healthcare have had some success. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson passed our first national healthcare legislation: Medicare for those age 65 and over and for younger adults with disabilities. Medicaid for indigent people. Most working- and middle-class Americans were excluded. Presumably working Americans would get health insurance via their workplace. Presidents Clinton and Obama, neither of whom pushed for passage of a universal program, were able to pass legislation providing incremental change. Clinton’s “Healthcare Act of 1997” and Obama’s “Affordable Care Act” of 2010 reduced the number of uninsured Americans. These bills, however, did not insure everyone or address segregation within the insurance system. They did not stem the rising cost of health care or reduce the number of underinsured persons with medical debt. They are responsible for the convoluted and cumbersome healthcare system we have today.
It is helpful to look back at the Social Security Amendment of 1965 that created the Medicare and Medicaid programs. In the days before the 1965 Civil Rights Act, Democrats usually enjoyed wide majorities in both the Senate and the House. There was however a confounder. Their majority included a block of Southern politicians whose principles were akin to those of their Civil War era Democratic Party predecessors. To gain their support, Johnson had to craft legislation that would somehow assure continued inequality between White and Black Americans. A true Medicare program was offered only to older retired Americans. That legislation required that hospital funding would be contingent upon hospital desegregation. In fact, hospital desegregation was achieved. Working age people however would be served by Medicaid, a program with means testing that provides care only to people at the poverty level. Details of the program are left to the discretion of the states. Most wage-earning, working-class people are thus excluded from the government program. Practical details of the program are left to the discretion of each state. The drawback became apparent during Covid when ten red states rejected the Medicaid supplements offered via the Affordable Care Act. Covid mortality in those states was greater than in those that participated in the Medicaid expansion.
Passage of a state-based program thus poses a conundrum: will passage of a state-based program serve as an initial step towards a national program? Or, with single-payer programs in place in progressive states, will the push for true national universal program be abandoned? The Medicaid experience bodes poorly for the success of a state-based plan. On the other hand, the history of the Canadian healthcare system shows that a state-based program may serve as a solid foundation for evolution to a nationwide plan. The Canadian program began in 1947 as a Saskatchewan-wide hospital insurance program for that province. Over the years, health programs were developed in other provinces such that in 1984, these coalesced into one: the Federal Canada Health Act.
With its New York Health Act (NYHA), New York State is now at the forefront of the movement toward state-based healthcare legislation. The notion that progressive legislation should originate in New York State has precedent. In the aftermath of the early 20th century Greenwich Village Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, Frances Perkins, then a social worker and executive secretary of the newly formed Statewide Committee on Safety, was instrumental in crafting minimum wage, child labor and worker safety laws for the State. These State laws would later become the template for much of FDR’s New Deal legislation.
The NYHA would provide comprehensive coverage to all New York residents. The bill would establish a trust fund to hold money for patients and pay providers. Providers would bill the fund for services. Fees would be negotiated. Patients’ choices of physicians would not be limited by networks or prior authorizations. Nor would the bill dictate physicians’ methods of practice. All New Yorkers would pay a progressive graduated annual tax scaled according to income. Capital gains and stock transfers would be taxed as well. Additional funds would be available from Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP. While these funds could be transferred to the states via a wraparound process, SBUHCA would codify this transfer of funds. Patients would make no further healthcare payments. No co-pays, deductions, payment at the point of service, or denials. No one would have medical debt. It is projected that 9 of 10 New Yorkers would pay less for medical care under the NYHA than they pay now.
New Yorkers can afford the NYHA. All other industrial nations provide better care to their citizens and at lower cost. New York can do the same. The cost of providing comprehensive care to include those services now not covered by Medicare, e.g., dental, visual and auditory along with long term care, is large. But eliminating the middlemen in the insurance, pharmaceutical and other provider industries would produce sizable savings. A recent Rand Corporation analysis assumed that the rates for physicians’ fees and other service providers would be greater than Medicare rates but less than that of more generous providers. The analysis concluded that the NYHA would reduce the overall cost of healthcare by 4%.
Where does the NYHA stand today? The process of advancing legislation from its drafting toits passage is arduous. Presently, the NYHA has a majority of co-sponsors in both chambers: 32 in the Senate; 78 in the Assembly. More public support for the bill is necessary, however, before legislators will advance the bill to the legislative chambers for a vote. Opposition from two major public service unions has also hindered efforts to bring the bill to a vote.
Passage of the NYHA would be a meaningful forward step toward adequate health insurance for all. We must continue the fight.
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The Costs of Our For-Profit Healthcare System Continue to Rise
Every other developed country guarantees healthcare to all citizens as a basic human right. We’re essentially the only ones that decided to turn our health into a commodity.
Sep 11, 2025
The Financial Times recently reported that Americans are facing the biggest increase in health insurance premiums in 15 years. This comes after the announcement that the Trump administration’s budget bill will cut Medicaid funding, kicking millions of Americans off their insurance and forcing the closure of many rural hospitals.
American healthcare is already, by far, the most expensive in the world. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), we have roughly twice the per-capita healthcare costs of other developed countries, yet we have relatively poor outcomes. By numerous metrics, including preventable deaths, life expectancy, and infant mortality, we lag behind peer countries, despite spending far more than they do. Even well-off Americans with insurance tend to get sicker and die sooner than their counterparts in places like the UK and Canada.
The reason is simple—every other developed country guarantees healthcare to all citizens as a basic human right. We’re essentially the only ones that decided to turn our health into a commodity.
Between 45,000 and 68,000 Americans die each year from preventable diseases, simply because they don’t have access to health insurance. Meaning, if they lived in any other country in the developed world, they’d survive. This shouldn’t be happening in the richest country on Earth.
Single-payer is the future of healthcare.
Historically, the costs of healthcare rise faster than wages and overall inflation. Employers often shift these costs onto workers in the form of higher premiums, co-pays, and deductibles or by dropping benefits for spouses, retirees, and part-time workers. The result is that people are being squeezed more and more. Nearly half of all Americans report struggling to afford healthcare.
It’s been demonstrated numerous times that universal healthcare would save money. Taxes would go up, but private health insurance premiums would be eliminated, so the average American would pay substantially less. It would just be in the form of a tax, not a premium. One report from 2020 compared 22 different cost analyses of potential single-payer initiatives at both the state and federal level and found that 19 of them projected savings (in the first year and long-term).
It’s essential that we transition to a system that prioritizes patient care over profit. Single-payer is the future of healthcare. Until the US joins the rest of the world in guaranteeing healthcare as a basic human right to all citizens, the costs will continue to balloon, as more and more Americans are needlessly bankrupted or killed.
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How Medicare Advantage Is Hurting Workers
How Medicare Advantage is hurting workers
Jul 03, 2025
In 2017, Gary Bent was notified that his healthcare benefits were changing. Mr. Bent, a retired professor who taught at the University of Connecticut, received his Medicare coverage through his former employer. Prior to 2017, Gary was covered by traditional Medicare and a supplemental MediGap policy (which covers the 20% of medical costs not paid by traditional Medicare). However, in 2017 the state of Connecticut and Bent’s union renegotiated healthcare benefits for retired employees and entered into a Medicare Advantage contract.
Medicare Advantage is a for-profit, privately administered healthcare plan which covers people over the age of 65, or who have qualifying disabilities. Unlike traditional Medicare—the widely popular, government-run healthcare program that has covered America’s seniors for nearly 60 years—Medicare Advantage is rife with complaints of delays and denials of care, restricted provider networks, and the usual shortcomings of a for-profit healthcare system.
Years later, in June of 2022, Gary Bent had a recurrence of melanoma in the form of a bleeding lesion in his brain. Following a brain surgery, his neurosurgeon recommended he stay at a specialty hospital that could provide intensive care during his recovery. Despite being accepted as a patient, his Medicare Advantage plan said he had to go to a different facility, which his daughter, Megan Bent, described as “substandard.”
While he was in the rehab facility, Gary’s Medicare Advantage provider attempted to discharge him three times; Megan and her mother, Gloria Bent, filed appeals each time, and were twice successful. However, after losing the third appeal, Gary was discharged from the facility. Once he got home, he had a fever and was experiencing neck pain; he had been discharged from the facility while infected with bacterial meningitis.
After being readmitted for another three weeks, he was again discharged from the hospital and remained at home under the care of Megan and Gloria until he passed away shortly after. Following Gary’s death, Megan and her mother learned that Gary’s care was denied by an artificial intelligence program used by his Medicare Advantage provider.
The Bent family’s story is one shared by many families throughout the country, and despite increased criticism of Medicare Advantage in recent years, a growing number of unions have agreed to—or been forced into—moving their retired members out of traditional Medicare with supplemental MediGap coverage and on to these privatized plans.
To address this issue, the Labor Campaign for Single Payer recently hosted a webinar titled “Medicare Advantage and the Privatization of Healthcare: What Unions and Workers Need to Know,” which featured remarks from AFA-CWA president Sara Nelson, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.). The webinar also included informative and important presentations from Rose Roach, national coordinator for the Labor Campaign for Single Payer and Dr. Belinda McIntosh, board member for Physicians for a National Health Program, as well as testimony from Megan Bent and another Connecticut retiree, James Russell, both of whom are activists with the health justice advocacy organization Be A Hero.
Rose Roach opened her presentation by stating that the organization “never want(ed) to shame a union or their workers.” In truth, negotiators at the bargaining table are in a difficult position when it comes to negotiating retiree health benefits. While traditional Medicare rarely subjects patients to prior authorizations and allows them to see virtually any provider in the country, the program alone only covers 80% of healthcare costs. Therefore, unions must negotiate the purchase of a supplemental (MediGap) policy in order to cover the other 20%, with the combined premiums costing hundreds of dollars a month.
Medicare Advantage plans, on the other hand, often have low- or zero-dollar premiums and include coverage for dental, vision, hearing, and prescriptions (though the value of these additional benefits is often much less than beneficiaries were led to believe). However, patients in Medicare Advantage regularly experience claim denials and are often restricted to seeing a narrow set of in-network providers to get care. Insurance companies seek to maximize their profits by minimizing the amount of care their beneficiaries receive. The long-term costs of having to pay out of pocket for expensive treatments that are often not covered under Medicare Advantage plans can leave retirees and their families under mountains of medical debt.
Union negotiators may embrace Medicare Advantage because they are not fully aware of the long-term costs to their retirees, and because it looks like an opportunity to save money on retiree healthcare, which increases their leverage to bargain for better wages and benefits for in-service workers.
Despite increased public attention to the shortcomings of Medicare Advantage plans, many negotiators do not have the full picture of what it means to enter into a Medicare Advantage contract, and so the Labor Campaign for Single Payer developed a White Paper that highlights many of the important differences between the two options and includes a list of questions for negotiators to ask at the bargaining table, which they hope will result in more informed negotiations and fewer retired union workers ending up on Medicare Advantage.
In her remarks, Sen. Warren asserted that the name “Medicare Advantage” is misleading, arguing that the program “isn’t part of Medicare at all, and certainly not an advantage.”
Congresswoman Jayapal, the lead sponsor of the Medicare for All Act in the U.S. House, urged the attendees to make this issue a top priority in the coming years, saying “we can’t end up with Medicare Advantage for All, we need Medicare for All, and we need your organizing, your mobilizing, and your collective power to fight back against the giant insurance companies that are trying to buy up and destroy the vital public program.”
Indeed, insurance companies like UnitedHealthcare are doing everything they can to increase funding for Medicare Advantage and get as many people on to their plans as possible, often through deceptive marketing tactics and aggressive lobbying campaigns. This is because Medicare Advantage is the leading driver of corporate profits in healthcare.
In 2024, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), and independent government commission tasked with advising Congress on Medicare policy, estimated overpayments to Medicare Advantage providers to be roughly $80 billion dollars every year, while Physicians for a National Health Program released a similar report that estimated overpayments could be closer to $140 billion dollars annually. Roach’s presentation analyzed the various ways in which Medicare Advantage providers receive more money than was intended, which include upcoding, favorable selection and deselection, and quality and county bonuses. Of greatest concern to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle is ‘upcoding,’ a term referring to the insurance industry’s fraudulent practice of applying diagnostic codes to a patient’s chart in order to charge the federal government more money.
Insurance companies like UnitedHealthcare are doing everything they can to increase funding for Medicare Advantage and get as many people on to their plans as possible...
Much has been written about upcoding in recent years, including a bombshell report from the New York Times in 2022. Despite this extensive level of news coverage, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was seemingly caught off guard by a line of questioning from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who asked Sec. Kennedy whether he was aware of any ongoing investigations, led by the Department of Justice, into this nefarious corporate practice. Kennedy, befuddled, asked the Congresswoman what she was referring to when she claimed there were “80 million dollars” of overpayments in Medicare Advantage, to which Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez had to clarify she said “80 billion dollars a year…billion, with a ‘b.’”
A centerpiece of the insurance industry’s public relations campaign to pressure the federal government to increase funding for Medicare Advantage is the claim that the program is solving the health equity gap among eligible Medicare beneficiaries. Studies funded by AHIP, the insurance industry’s biggest lobbyist, claim that Medicare Advantage is providing better care at lower cost to beneficiaries. Dr. Belinda McIntosh repudiated the industry’s claim with a detailed presentation highlighting disparate health outcomes among various racial groups, concluding that beneficiaries who are black, hispanic, or members of “the usual disenfranchised groups are being left with no choice but to accept an inferior product with major problems, that wealthier and more privileged Americans are less likely to accept.” Indeed, as Dr. McIntosh stated, Black and Hispanic beneficiaries were denied care at rates of 20% and 23% respectively by their Medicare Advantage plans, as compared to 15% of claims being denied for White beneficiaries.
While the world of health policy is often laden with statistics and figures, everyone has a story about the shortcomings of the American healthcare system. Stories like that of the Bent family ring true to millions of others, including James Russell, a retired academic who, like Gary, used to work for the state of Connecticut and is on a Medicare Advantage plan. During the webinar, Russell told his story of being diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer and having to seek treatment from a number of different providers in different corners of the country. Megan, Gloria, and James shared their stories and discussed their collaborative work to fight for a better healthcare system as part of their work with Be A Hero.
While the world of health policy is often laden with statistics and figures, everyone has a story about the shortcomings of the American healthcare system.
The Labor Campaign for Single Payer is demanding that the federal government “level the playing field” between traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage. While the former is constantly under financial strain, the latter benefits from unchecked corporate handouts to insurers, who then increase their profits at the expense of patients by delaying and denying care. Just as is the case when a union negotiator is in a difficult position in picking between traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage, so too are individual beneficiaries, who must either pay hundreds of dollars a month in premiums for traditional Medicare and a supplemental policy, or instead sign over their Medicare benefits to an insurance corporation that does not care about them. In order to “level the playing field” between traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage, activists and lawmakers seek to expand traditional Medicare to cover vision, dental and hearing, as well as to set an out-of-pocket-cap on healthcare spending by beneficiaries, which could reduce the necessity of a MediGap policy and thereby reduce the monthly premiums of traditional Medicare.
The Labor Campaign for Single Payer encouraged attendees of the webinar to go to their unions and pass a resolution stating support to level the playing field, which has passed at conventions of the Washington State Labor Council AFL-CIO, the Minnesota AFL-CIO and the Maine AFL-CIO. Additionally, organizers of the webinar encouraged attendees to review and utilize their White Paper to discuss Medicare and Medicare Advantage with their fellow workers and union’s leadership and plan a bargaining strategy that pushes back on the claim that Medicare Advantage is a “win-win” solution to the problem of the high cost of retiree healthcare.
The White Paper, the resolution and the recording of the June 18 Webinar are available on the Labor Campaign for Single Payer’s Resources page, along with a variety of other educational resources on Medicare Advantage and the fight to guarantee healthcare to all workers and people.Keep ReadingShow Less
After The National Day of Action for Single Payer, the Best Defense Is a Good Offense
To eliminate impending Medicaid cuts and other threats to coverage, enact a national, single-payer healthcare system free from all profit, including in the provisioning of care.
Jun 24, 2025
In January, 2025, following the shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, National Single Payer and single-payer activists across the country responded to the righteous anger of the people rising against the health insurance industry by writing a “Manifesto,” which included these four demands:
- The recognition by our government that healthcare is a human right.
- The elimination of private health insurance and the banning of for-profit delivery of care.
- The enactment of a publicly financed, national single-payer program that would provide comprehensive coverage to everyone.
- The transformation of care delivery from profit-seeking ventures into services organized to serve the people of our country, a system in which all caregivers are freed from corporate control.
We called for people across the country to join us in the street on May 31 to raise the demand and put single payer on the nation’s agenda, a reference to the Congressional Progressive Caucus’ 2025 Proposition Agenda released last year which conspicuously omitted a national single-payer program from its agenda (or support for a cease-fire in Gaza).
Over 140 local, state, and national organizations, from central labor councils to social justice organizations, from political parties to physicians’ groups, endorsed the four demands, and more than 30 cities in 17 states held actions demanding that single payer be put on the nation’s agenda.
Endorsing organizations representing 28 states plus the District of Columbia were predominately social justice organizations, whose primary mission is not healthcare. Down Home North Carolina, an organization that mobilizes rural communities in North Carolina to improve the lives of working families, endorsed. So did EX-Incarcerated People Organizing in Wisconsin, which works to end mass incarceration. As did the Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, founded to mobilize people of color and whites to take action against racism in their community. Large organizations such as the California Alliance of Retired Americans, representing 1 million members in California, and small ones such as Pride on the Patio, a community that creates safe and welcoming spaces for LGBTQ+ individuals in Frederick, Maryland, endorsed. The call to put single payer on the nation’s agenda is popular beyond single-payer activists.
Together, let’s build a movement as massive as “No Kings Day,” so formidable that it cannot be denied or ignored.
More than 30 actions were held across the country, including in “Trump country” states such North Carolina, Florida, Texas, Kentucky, West Virginia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Missouri. Whether from red or blue states, people organized to demand that a single-payer healthcare program free from profit be put on the nation’s agenda.
Notably missing from the list of endorsers were faith groups (only two), “big” labor (aside from the Kentucky State AFL-CIO), and “big” national single-payer organizations.
They still need to be convinced that making a demand of the Democratic Party is acceptable and has broad support.
If the demonstrations on “No Kings Day” are any indication, people are furious with the current administration, but they are no less tired of the Democratic playbook. “No Kings Day” rallies, while enthusiastic and well attended, lacked a central bold demand.
In contrast, activists on May 31 made bold demands, refusing to believe the wealthiest country should have a separate healthcare system for the poor, or that we should wait until we are 65 to access a public healthcare system into which we pay all our working lives. On May 31, activists demanded an end to a system where health insurance CEOs, who worry more about “disappointing investors” than patients, control our health. On May 31, we demanded the end of a system where insurance companies get to make trillions of dollars in earnings and spend millions on federal lobbying to influence government officials who write the laws to benefit the owners and not the people who suffer under it.
In times like these, the best defense is a good offense. To eliminate impending Medicaid cuts; to stop imposing work requirements; to end overpayments to Medicare Advantage and the privatization of Medicare; to prohibit narrow networks, prior authorizations, and delays and denials of care; to end deductibles, medical debt, and bankruptcy, and to negotiate at the bargaining table for higher wages: enact a national, single-payer healthcare system free from all profit, including in the provisioning of care.
National Single Payer and other organizations are going on the offensive, working with labor unions to fight for single payer and mobilizing members of Congress, especially those who have endorsed Medicare for All legislation, to make national single payer a publicly visible fight by asking them to commit to:
- Speak out about national single payer free from profit in “Special Order” speeches on the floor of Congress.
- Support the issue on their website.
- Discuss it at Town Halls.
- Write about it in emails and newsletters.
- Talk about it in hearings, media, and at all public opportunities.
- Improve the current Medicare for All legislation by removing all profit from the provisioning of care.
On May 31 activists from local organizations gathered to demand the healthcare system this nation deserves.
Moving forward, let’s demand our elected officials speak out, support, discuss, write, talk, and improve current Medicare for All legislation. Together, let’s build a movement as massive as “No Kings Day,” so formidable that it cannot be denied or ignored, a movement of millions in the street and in the workplace to put single payer on the nation’s agenda and heal this country once and for all.
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A National Single-Payer Healthcare System Would Be Good for Employers, Too
Job-based insurance poses health-related and financial burdens on company employers and employees. These burdens would disappear with universal healthcare.
May 17, 2025
The National Day of Action is set for May 31, 2025, as a call to action in communities across the United States. The goal is to unite people locally and nationally to eliminate profit-based healthcare. This nonviolent campaign is a collective effort that aims to put National Single Payer on the national agenda. Everyone has a basic human right to healthcare.
This opinion piece shares research findings to advocate for a single-payer healthcare system. Among wealthy countries, the U.S. has by far the most expensive healthcare system, and yet the only one without universal coverage. It is fundamentally broken. The system is inequitable due to differences in insurance availability based on work status, income, and other factors. Individuals of different backgrounds don’t have the same level of access to quality healthcare services. Excess administrative costs for insurers and providers add to an estimate of $504 billion out of $1.1 trillion. The time that it takes providers to complete billing tasks can compromise patient-provider relationships and care delivery.
Employer-sponsored insurance plans are the mainstay of U.S. health insurance. More than 156 million Americans (workers and their families) are covered by job-based insurance. The plans can incur high costs for employees and their families. It also places a burden on employers, including premium payments, time spent managing insurance, and potential compromises to hiring and worker productivity. One study estimated annual transactions costs to companies of $21.6 billion. Time spent by employees dealing with insurance issues may constitute the “sludge” that reduces productivity.
“All my employees are friends of mine. It really pains me to see them not go to the doctor, especially for specialists.”
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, San Francisco studied the consequences of the U.S. system of health insurance on employers. We conducted seven company case studies, with companies in various industries and of varying sizes. Companies were qualitatively and quantitatively explored for the burdens imposed on employers by providing health insurance to their workers and dependents. We interviewed company owners and managers. Below are summaries of the findings:
- All of the companies care about employee health and financial well-being. They strive to provide reliable health insurance, though employees often have other options (spousal coverage or Medicaid).
- Strategies vary widely in terms of types of coverage. Most companies reported substantial management time overseeing the insurance process. Several companies have utilized brokers or consultants for assistance.
- The two largest companies (both in the manufacturing industry) incurred unique costs related to being self-insured.
- Premium and other financial costs represented 4% to 27% of labor costs. The management cost component is up to 50% of the premium cost. Employee productivity lost to insurance activities was not significant. While there hasn’t been a significant impact on business operations, such as strategies to increase production to meet demand surges, it does affect hiring and can lead to significant costs.
Below are direct quotes from some of those interviews:
“Where [health insurance] really has an impact is who we can hire. The people who would want to work for us would want insurance and so that was always a big barrier to getting talent.”—Owner, Custom Gifts and Products company
“The cost of health insurance has limited, I mean that there’s a certain limit to my profit margin and particularly with other factors such as supply chain issues... I’m getting squeezed on a lot of different fronts, and if my health insurance didn’t go up 10% every year, I could pay people 10% more every year... They don’t want to give up their health insurance, but I think they know that it’s suppressing the wages that we can pay.”—Owner, Print and Design company
“All my employees are friends of mine. It really pains me to see them not go to the doctor, especially for specialists... And our specialist cost is very high... And for some of our employees, especially the warehouse employees, they’re not super high compensation.”—Owner, Aviation Distribution company
To conclude, job-based insurance poses health-related and financial burdens on company employers and employees. These burdens would disappear with the implementation of a national single-payer healthcare system.
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Heal This Sick Country: ‘Hands Up’ for the National Day of Action for Single Payer
Over 70 local and national organizations have endorsed the National Day of Action. On May 31, focus the outrage to move the engine of change and put single payer on the nation’s agenda and remove profit from healthcare.
Apr 27, 2025
On Jan 17, 2025, on the heels of the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, we wrote about the failed system of our corporate controlled healthcare and the outrage against the health insurance industry the shooting spawned. We mentioned the possibility of setting a National Day of Action in 2025 to demand freeing healthcare from profit and covering everyone under a national single payer plan.
Today, we call on people across the country to gather on May 31, 2025, to put their “Hands Up” for:
- The recognition by our government that healthcare is a human right;
- The elimination of private health insurance and the banning of for-profit delivery of care;
- The enactment of a publicly financed, national single-payer program that would provide comprehensive coverage to everyone; and
- The transformation of care delivery from profit-seeking ventures into services organized to serve the people of our country, a system in which all caregivers are freed from corporate control.
President Donald Trump’s inauguration has introduced the prospect of severe hardships to working class and low-income people, people with disabilities, the elderly, and children with proposed cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security necessary to fund tax cuts for the wealthy. This moment demands more than the protection of our public programs; it demands a national, single-payer healthcare program, free from profit, for everyone. One people, one plan.
The complicity of our government in the profit-making enterprise of health insurance has been exposed once again when, on Monday April 7, the Trump administrationraised payment rates for Medicare Advantage insurers by 5.1%, significantly more than the Biden administration’s proposed increase of 2.2%, which was bad enough. This rate increase has the potential to increase payments to MA by $25 billion next year. However, the final sum will be closer to $60 billion, when the impact of gaming the system through risk scoring is included.
Paying health insurance premiums to a for-profit company that has been given permission to restrict and withhold necessary care is the great scam of modern U.S. healthcare.
As predicted, Medicare Advantage continues to gain enrollment because they offer lower premiums compared to Traditional Medicare. Now they can expect payment from the Medicare trust fund at a higher rate as they have almost every year under Democrat and Republican administrations since 2016. Early this month, while the rest of the market spun out of control due to the announcement of tariffs, insurance stocks soared after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) announced the Medicare Advantage rate hike.
Despite rate increases, Medicare Advantage will continue to operate within narrow networks that often don’t include specialty care, such as Cancer Centers of Excellence. Unlike Traditional Medicare, beneficiaries in Medicare Advantage must accept pre-authorization requirements to receive care that create the delays and denials of care. Many seniors are unaware that in all but four states, once they have enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan, they cannot change to Traditional Medicare without being subjected to underwriting and the potential of very high premiums if they have preexisting conditions. Paying health insurance premiums to a for-profit company that has been given permission to restrict and withhold necessary care is the great scam of modern U.S. healthcare.
Medicare is only one part of the privatization of government sponsored health insurance: Medicaid is now largely privatized in 42 states, subjecting children from low-income families and low-income adults to the delays and denials that are the mainstay of cost controls in managed care private insurance plans. Seventy five percent of all Medicaid beneficiaries now are enrolled in a Medicaid Managed Care Organization (MCO), and Medicaid MCO denials are twice as high as denials in Medicare Advantage. Five Fortune 500 health insurance companies enroll 50% of all Medicaid beneficiaries, all publicly traded and high performing profit makers.
Over 90 million Americans eligible for government supported healthcare, both Medicaid and Medicare, are now captives of private insurance managed care schemes that control their access to healthcare. Many more millions on Traditional Medicare are being “aligned” by CMS into profit-seeking Accountable Care Organizations. The underlying profit extraction inherent in these schemes prevents critical services from reaching the right people at the right time.
The same can be said for employer-based insurance where workers are paying excessive premiums to health insurance companies to be given the privilege of paying deductibles and coinsurance that make accessing care so expensive that many forgo needed services. According to the Commonwealth Fund, premiums and deductibles consume 10% of the median household income in the U.S. This means that every household with employer health insurance making $80,610 per year or less is underinsured. Employers are faced with increasing insurance premiums for their employees that challenge their ability to stay in business, or in the case of public schools, the ability to keep schools open.
Enough is enough! Over 70 local and national organizations have endorsed the National Day of Action. On May 31, join an action or plan an action in your community. Focus the outrage to move the engine of change and put single payer on the nation’s agenda and remove profit from healthcare. On May 31, put your “Hands Up” for National Single Payer—an Improved Medicare for All free from profit with everybody in and nobody out. Nothing less can heal the nation.
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Improved Medicare for All Can Heal This Sick Country
A system that collects money from patients and employers then profits by withholding the promised care is not a business but a fraudulent, diabolical scam.
Jan 17, 2025
It’s the beginning of the end for corporate control of health care. The tsunami of outrage against the health insurance industry in the wake of the shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, can propel an urgent, unyielding demand for the removal of profit from healthcare and the enactment of a universal, national single payer system. That is, if the single payer, Medicare for All, national health service movement can summon the vision and audacity to rise to the occasion.
The myth, promoted by health care think tanks and policy experts, that people in the United States are satisfied with their health insurance was exploded in the social media rage unleashed in the aftermath of the killing of the United Healthcare CEO.
Fifteen years after the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), our failing health care system is exposed with all its cruel denials, debt, disease, despair and death at the hands of the investor-owned companies for whom patients are merely pawns for the extraction of profit.
Health care in the United States comes in dead last when rated against comparable countries. The U. S. is at the bottom in overall performance, health outcomes, equity, access to care, and efficiency. As the Commonwealth Fund states: “In fulfilling this fundamental obligation [the ability to keep people healthy], the U. S. continues to fail.”
Health care in the United States comes in dead last when rated against comparable countries.
People in the United States aren’t living to their full potential. Already, the U.S. is 55th in life expectancy, behind Panama, Albania, and Czechia, and will fall in its global rankings by 2050 if the country continues the same trajectory. Years of life are lost to a health care system that serves profit over the value of life.
Our maternal mortality rate would be the shame of many of the poorest nations. In 2020, U.S. maternal mortality rate was higher than in Gaza. In 2022, there were 22 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in the U.S. This is easily double, and often triple, the mortality rate in peer nations, which can be as low as 5 per 100,000 live births. Black mortality rate is criminally worse: 49.5 per 100,000 live births.
Over one million in the U.S. died in the pandemic, a rate much higher than other nations. Over 330,000 of the pandemic deaths in the U.S. were avoidable. Those lives could have been saved had we had a healthcare system that left no one with inadequate coverage.
Cancer patients must not only fight for their lives but also for the economic survival of their families. The newest treatments with so much hope are beyond the means of those who have insurance policies but no great wealth. About 30% of cancer survivors report lasting financial hardship.
Cancer patients are nearly 5 times more likely to experience bankruptcy, and the medical burden forces many to forego care.
Those who have employer-based insurance were assumed to have the gold standard in health care. Now even the highest paid workers are subjected to premiums, deductibles, and co-pays that impede their care despite the family plans that average $32,000 per year. More have insurance that covers less than a hospital gown. Gold has turned to scrap metal.
As people struggle to pay for the premiums, deductibles, and co-pays, revenues of the seven largest health insurance companies in 2022 reached $1.25 trillion and profits soared to $69.3 billion. That’s a 287% increase in profits in just one decade, when profits were $24 billion.
The toxicity of the health care profit makers that spread unnecessary suffering and death generates the hatred that is poisoning the land.
Medicare, our best health care program, publicly funded and open to all, is now strangled in the grip of the privatized Medicare Advantage plans and the Accountable Care Organizations facilitated by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). Medicare Advantage now controls a majority of recipients, not because it is better, but because the law that established it and the regulators that control it have allowed it to charge less in monthly premiums—plans that are also allowed to delay and deny care yet are overpaid by billions every year. CMMI issues waivers to the private plans exempting them from fraud and abuse laws and allowing kickbacks, self-referral, and illegal benefit inducement.
Millions on fixed incomes cannot afford the alternative of traditional Medicare plus a prescription drug plan and a supplementary Medigap plan. Those who have managed to escape the clutches of Medicare Advantage can still find themselves assigned, without their knowledge, to “value-based” payment schemes such as ACO REACH and other Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) which privatize traditional Medicare. “Value-based” payment models are touted, without evidence, as reducing costs for Medicare, yet encompass a multitude of for-profit entities and subject patients to physicians incentivized to deny care. There is ample evidence that “value-based” payment schemes do not lower costs for Medicare. Nevertheless, the privatization of Medicare, through Medicare Advantage or ACOs, is now official policy.
The hoax of “value-based” payments, promoted by CMMI, is exposed by the fact that, despite all the assertions of promoting equity, the inequities of health care are expanding.
Medicaid, the program for children and adults with low income, is almost completely privatized, subjecting the recipients to delays, denials and restrictions imposed by the private managed care organizations that control it.
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is hurtling down the wrong track. They invite venture capital and health care investors into the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network (LAN) that they created. CMS holds conferences, seeking advice and collaboration from the very profiteers that are the cause of high cost, low-quality care. The “value-based” payment scheme promoted by CMS has advanced the power of the profit makers, raising costs, cutting care, and pretending to promote equity for minorities and low-income patients.
It’s time to end the chaos. No more foxes in the hen house, no more poison in the system, no more profit in health care.
The toxicity of the health care profit makers that spread unnecessary suffering and death generates the hatred that is poisoning the land.
It’s time to end the chaos. No more foxes in the hen house, no more poison in the system, no more profit in health care. The nation has rejected the insurance company health care model that delays and denies care, demands skin in the game, asserts that there is massive unnecessary care, throws up barriers against care, and walks away with billions. A system that collects money from patients and employers then profits by withholding the promised care is not a business but a fraudulent, diabolical scam.
This system built on profit cannot be tweaked or regulated into better performance. Runaway trains are not deterred by guardrails.
There is one way to heal the nation. Put single payer on the nation’s table and focus the steaming rage to move the engine of change. Raise the demand for removal of profit and enactment of an Improved Medicare for All free from profit to a level commensurate with the damage that our current failing system is causing the patients’ and the country’s goodwill.
Some look at the current Congress, make the assessment that it’s not possible to pass single payer, then change their demand to a lesser proposal. But incremental changes are at the root of the privatization and profit schemes we are locked into now. Fifteen years after the ACA we have a failing health care system. We have witnessed that more incrementalism does more harm than good. Power concedes nothing without a demand, and the demand must be equal to the solution needed.
There is one way to heal the nation. Put single payer on the nation’s table and focus the steaming rage to move the engine of change.
As Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, taught us, in our current private profit-based system, proposals that lower costs also decrease care, and proposals that increase care, raise costs. To improve care and control costs, we must turn to national single payer, free from profit or a national health service.
The status quo is deadly, and people are demanding a stronger more effective fight. We must organize and educate, locally and nationally with a new determination. In every town hall, classroom, union, organization, and neighborhood, people must hear the message and join the fight. Redirect the rage into a positive force for change.
The new anger in the nation makes possible what we could not do before. Many are now discussing the possibility of setting a National Day of Action in 2025 to demand freeing health care from corporate profit and covering everyone under a national single payer plan. That’s a great idea. Actions across the country lifting up that demand could inspire the movement we need.
National Single Payer—an Improved Medicare for All free from profit with everybody in and nobody out. Nothing less can heal the nation.
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Americans Are Angry About Their Health Insurance—With Good Reason
As a physician, I have seen patients suffer and die in order to pad the bottom lines of corporate health insurers—and in recent years I have seen this problem getting much worse.
Jan 01, 2025
How should we react when a man is shot to death on the street on his way to work? Our humanity tells us that we should be shocked and horrified—and feel that something is deeply wrong with such a brazen act of murder. Ideally, we would do what we could to help sooth the survivors, condemn the violence, and bring the perpetrator to justice.
So why did hundreds of thousands of people have the exact opposite reaction when UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was executed in New York City last month? Because Americans are furious with health insurance corporations—and they have every right to be.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, many Americans took to social media not to mourn, but to celebrate. Caustic posts about prior authorization and denied medical claims were common. Sympathetic statements were met with rancor—and in the case of UnitedHealth Group’s own statement, over 70,000 “laugh reactions” before the company made that tally private. Even verbose political figures like Elon Musk and President-elect Donald Trump declined to comment for days. This shooting touched a raw nerve.
The health insurance industry doesn’t have a communications problem, it has a profiteering problem—and no amount of marketing will convince people who have already been burned.
As a physician who’s treated countless victims of gun violence, and who’s life’s work is to care for all of my patients, I found this response to be deeply unnerving. But I also can’t waive it away with simple explanations like online radicalization or trolling. Something much deeper is at play.
For decades, health insurance corporations like United have been growing more powerful and more profitable. How do they generate these profits? By taking in as much money as possible in premiums and paying out as little as possible in medical claims. Over time, they have tried everything from requiring “prior authorization” of care, to excluding high-quality providers from their networks, to imposing a Byzantine series of charges including ever-growing copays, coinsurance, and deductibles. When all else fails, many insurers simply deny claims.
Behind each of these practices are millions of Americans who are made to suffer. I hear these stories routinely in my practice, and they never become easier to stomach. I have seen patients with aggressive cancer who avoided seeing a doctor for months because they feared bankruptcy; patients with chronic conditions like diabetes who are denied treatments that would improve their quality of life; and gunshot victims whose fight to recover and gain a semblance of normalcy is complicated by their health plans saying no, no, and no again.
I have seen patients suffer and die in order to pad the bottom lines of corporate health insurers—and in recent years I have seen this problem getting much worse.
These are the stories that Americans are sharing in this fraught moment. We have to ask ourselves: Are we listening? And what are we going to do about it?
Insurers like UnitedHealthcare will have their own responses. Their PR teams will no doubt work overtime to marginalize aggrieved voices and to highlight what they consider to be the “value” of their health plans. Expect to see glossy commercials and towering billboards touting the “peace of mind” that Americans should enjoy knowing that their medical needs are “covered.” But the health insurance industry doesn’t have a communications problem, it has a profiteering problem—and no amount of marketing will convince people who have already been burned.
Behind the scenes, corporate insurers will no doubt lobby for the preferential treatment they have come to expect. Our newly elected Congress may acquiesce, or they may decide that the industry needs to be regulated—a strategy that has failed to live up to its promise.
Republicans and Democrats have made separate attempts to combine federal requirements with federal largesse in order to make corporate health insurers play nice. But both the Affordable Care Act and the Medicare Advantage program have only succeeded in ballooning the profits of firms like United—without improving Americans’ health or sparing their wallets.
It’s also clear that violence is not the answer, both on a purely human level and because corporate insurers will simply not be moved. UnitedHealthcare will have a new CEO in short order, and it will be that person’s responsibility to boost profits and make shareholders wealthier. Responding to patients’ cries will not serve these ends, so it is not in the cards.
What would help is a proven reform proposal that is long overdue: a single-payer national health program. Such a system would provide universal coverage and comprehensive benefits—with zero out-of-pocket costs. It could be easily implemented given the gargantuan sums we spend on healthcare in this country, and it would be a boon for those who are suffering, and for those who are fearful.
Americans are crying out in pain—and are recognizing that they are not alone in their pain. We should listen to these cries and we should finally, after decades of delay, do something about it.
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Why Didn't the Covid-19 Pandemic Result in Medicare for All?
Nobody should die in the richest country on Earth because they can’t afford health care. But this what happens day after day after day, whether we're experiencing a pandemic or not.
Nov 25, 2024
In 2002, the American economist Victor R. Fuchs wrote that “national health insurance will probably come to the United States in the wake of a major change in the political climate, the kind of change that often accompanies a war, a depression, or large-scale civil unrest.”
You couldn’t have designed a crisis much better suited to deliver us this outcome than Covid-19. In 2020, the U.S. faced the largest public health emergency in its history, at a time when 28 million Americans did not have health insurance and millions more were underinsured.
The faulty, patchwork nature of our health care system greatly compounded the effects of the pandemic. In fact, a study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) found that the U.S. could have seen around 338,000 fewer deaths from Covid-19 if we’d had universal coverage and we could have saved billions in health care costs associated with hospitalizations from the disease.
Nobody should die in the richest country on Earth because they can’t afford health care. The Covid-19 pandemic should have made clear once and for all how irrational and cruel our system is. We are the only developed nation that doesn’t guarantee health care to all citizens. As a result, tens of millions of Americans every year suffer without access to basic medical care, while insurance companies are allowed to make record profits. There are people in America who have to ration prescription drugs, while a few miles over the border in Canada, they could get these same pills at a fraction of the cost. There are people who have to forgo life-saving surgeries, because they can’t afford the procedures. Roughly a third of all GoFundMe campaigns in the U.S. go to people raising money for medical treatments.
In April, 2020, a nurse in the intensive care unit of a New York City hospital named Derrick Smith, wrote on Facebook that one of his patients asked “who’s going to pay for this?” before being intubated and placed on a ventilator, seemingly more concerned about the cost of the procedure than what the outcome would be. These would end up being his last words.
Meanwhile, the CEOs of 300 health care companies collectively made more than $4.5 billion in 2021, according to Stat News. The obvious conclusion is scathing.
Lockdown orders during the pandemic led to a massive spike in unemployment, yet despite significant job losses, the number of insured Americans actually increased, primarily due to emergency Medicaid eligibility policies. This amounted to the government (at least, partially) performing the function of a national health care system – i.e. filling gaps in coverage left by the private insurance industry. Unfortunately, as pandemic-era emergency measures ended, millions of Americans lost this coverage and private insurance returned to business as usual.
A number of factors contributed to America’s poor pandemic performance relative to other countries; a slow government response in terms of travel and testing, PPE shortages and delays in testing rollout. But it’s almost certain that addressing Covid-19 would have been easier if everyone had health insurance. According to the consumer health advocacy organization Families USA, roughly 40% of Covid-19 infections were associated with lack of health insurance.
In general, gaps in insurance coverage tend to accelerate the spread of diseases. People are less likely to get tested if they don't have insurance for fear of large medical bills. The more people who have insurance and a relationship with a primary care physician, the more cases can be diagnosed and treated quicker, thus reducing the likelihood of serious infection. Slowing the spread also reduces the strain on hospitals, making it easier to treat all patients.
There were some countries with single-payer that fared poorly during the pandemic. Italy, for instance, was hit very hard, in part because they had a lot of people in the vulnerable age range. However, many of the best-performing countries, particularly outside of Europe (New Zealand, South Korea), were those with single-payer systems. Taiwan, which transitioned to a single-payer system in the 1990s, achieved Covid-19 zero without a lockdown.
There were other factors which should have made Covid-19 uniquely suited to deliver us major health care reform. Unlike a number of other public health crises (the opioid epidemic, homelessness), Covid-19 received near-constant media coverage. It was front-and-center in everybody’s mind for three years. It also came on the heels of two back-to-back election cycles in which Medicare For All was a key issue in both debates and public policy discussions.
Public support for Medicare For All was at an all-time high in 2020. And in 2021, when Rep. Pramila Jayapal introduced the legislation, it was co-sponsored by a majority of Democrats in the House. Nothing like that had ever happened before. Even according to right-wing outlets like the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), Covid-19 led to a significant spike in support for single-payer.
Why, then, did nothing happen? One major problem was that the pandemic kept people inactive. The public was too atomized and immobile for any effective, coordinated response to cohere. The pandemic created a lot of pent-up anger, much of which got unleashed in the summer of 2020 via the Black Lives Matter protests, coming at a time when many people had been stuck in lockdown for months, many without jobs. When the spark was lit, it quickly became a lightning rod for solidarity and popular discontent.
The biggest problem is that single-payer health care is opposed by some of the most powerful special-interest groups in the country; the private insurance industry, pharmaceutical companies, and the for-profit hospitals. Health care is a massive sector of our market economy, a multi-trillion-dollar a year industry, so despite widespread popular support for the program, there is currently no mechanism strong enough to bring this public pressure to bear on politicians.
If we are to rise to the level of the rest of the developed world and guarantee health care to all citizens, we need to constitute an organized popular opposition which can participate in shaping public policy. Ideally, this will mean grass-roots initiatives backed by a strong labor sector—unions in the nursing, trades, and service sectors working in conjunction with local advocacy groups. We must capitalize on the momentum built up in 2020 and continue to push single-payer forward. If we organize and act to exercise our power, this is hardly a utopian goal.
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Medicare for All Advocates Welcome Obama DNC Remarks as 'New Opening for Reform'
The former president said Democratic nominee Kamala Harris "knows we can't stop" at the Affordable Care Act.
Aug 21, 2024
A brief aside in former President Barack Obama's 35-minute speech at the Democratic National Convention Tuesday night provided a glimmer of hope that a Kamala Harris victory in November could be a catalyst for transformational change to the United States' disastrous for-profit healthcare system.
Obama—who before becoming president described himself as a "proponent of a single-payer universal healthcare program"—told Democratic delegates, leaders, and activists gathered inside the United Center in Chicago that the party should be "proud of the enormous progress that we've made through the Affordable Care Act," the 2010 law commonly known as Obamacare.
"But," the former president added, "Kamala knows we can't stop there, which is why she'll keep working to limit out-of-pocket costs."
Obama's remarks were far from an explicit endorsement of Medicare for All, a longstanding progressive goal that Harris backed as a senator and continued to support—at least in name—as a 2020 presidential candidate.
But longtime single-payer advocate Michael Lighty told Common Dreams on Wednesday that Obama's acknowledgment that the ACA has not been nearly enough to rein in the nation's out-of-control healthcare costs and crack down on the rampant abuses of the for-profit insurance industry "signals a new opening for reform" if Harris defeats Republican nominee Donald Trump.
"I was struck by the juxtaposition of 'access to affordable coverage,' which is the usual centrist frame for healthcare reform, and this reference to going beyond the ACA," Lighty said in response to Obama's comments. "It recognizes that rising costs overall and out-of-pocket costs especially are unsustainable."
"The cost frame is good for Medicare for All advocates," he added, "if we 'prosecute' the argument for the savings generated by Medicare for All."
Research has repeatedly shown that a Medicare for All system of the kind envisioned by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)—the leading single-payer advocates in Congress—would cost less than the status quo while providing everyone in the U.S. with comprehensive insurance coverage for free at the point of service.
Under the nation's current for-profit system—which leaves tens of millions of Americans uninsured or underinsured and struggling to afford their out-of-pocket costs—annual healthcare spending is projected to rise to $7.7 trillion by 2032, according to federal estimates.
"It is clear that the North Star of a Harris-Walz administration is consistent with what Senator Bernie Sanders said from the DNC stage last night: guaranteeing healthcare to every person in this country."
Despite co-sponsoring Sanders' Medicare for All bill in the Senate in 2017 and campaigning on a proposal that donned the "Medicare for All" label during the 2020 Democratic primary, Harris has not made the popular progressive idea part of her 2024 platform.
A Harris campaign official told Politico earlier this week that Medicare for All is "no longer part of" the vice president's healthcare policy agenda, which has thus far focused largely on slashing prescription drug costs and relieving the burden of medical debt.
But Medicare for All advocates, who have seen support for the proposal surge at the state and local levels amid federal inaction, are not disheartened by the vice president's decision to sideline single-payer in her 2024 campaign.
Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, pointed to the newly unveiled Democratic platform's support for expanding Medicare benefits to include dental, vision, and hearing services as part of a viable "path forward."
"It is clear that the North Star of a Harris-Walz administration is consistent with what Senator Bernie Sanders said from the DNC stage last night: guaranteeing healthcare to every person in this country, so if you get sick you get the care you need," Lawson told Common Dreams. (The Democratic platform states that "healthcare should be a right in America, not a privilege"—a line popularized by Sanders.)
"As president," said Lawson, "it is clear that Kamala Harris would use every tool at her disposal to rein in the corporate greed, delays, and denials of the current system and continue building step by step towards a goal of universal guaranteed healthcare."
Rose Roach, national coordinator of the Labor Campaign for Single Payer, offered a similar assessment, telling Common Dreams in an email on Wednesday that while President Joe Biden "was clear that he did not support Medicare for All," he "supported important improvements to traditional Medicare that begins to build the public infrastructure we'll need for Medicare for All when it does pass"—specifically the drug price negotiation program and new constraints on corporate-run Medicare Advantage plans.
"The Labor Campaign for Single Payer believes VP Harris is equally committed to securing and protecting traditional Medicare and will work with the movement to continue the work of stabilizing our public Medicare program," said Roach. "Improving and expanding traditional Medicare, protecting it from the privatizers who are overbilling Medicare while inflicting obstacles for enrollees to access care via onerous prior authorizations and outright claims denials, is job one."
"Doing so not only offers the infrastructure building we need on the pathway to Medicare for All," Roach added, "but it also makes traditional Medicare affordable for enrollees, unions who negotiate retiree health benefits, and even for employers who offer retiree benefits. It's a win-win."
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