The Next Congress Must Meet the Moment by Passing Medicare for All

America’s affordability crisis played a major role in this year’s midterm elections — and few things in American life have become more unaffordable than health care.

It’s about to get worse as premiums rise and Medicaid cuts from the GOP’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” take effect. So if Democrats want to deliver on their promise to make life more affordable, then they must use their new congressional majorities to pass Medicare for All.

The United States spends more on health care yet has worse health outcomes than comparable high-income countries.

In surveys, health care costs remain the top financial burden for adults and families, even when they’re insured. Around 85 million people in the U.S. are either uninsured or underinsured, according to Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s (D-WA) office. Six in ten uninsured adults polled said they’ve recently skipped or postponed care because of the staggering costs.

It’s no wonder that a record two-thirds of all U.S. adults now support a national health plan like Medicare for All.

According to a recent Yale study, single-payer universal health coverage would save more than 100,000 lives a year and cost $1 trillion less than our current, profit-driven system. The study’s authors reached these findings by modeling what would happen if the U.S. adopted a single-payer system like the one proposed in the “Medicare for All Act.”

Introduced in 2025 by Jayapal, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI), and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the Medicare for All Act would expand Medicare to provide comprehensive health benefits to every U.S. resident. It would include primary care, mental health, dental, vision, hearing, reproductive care, prescription drugs, and more.

Patients would choose their doctors without crushing copays, deductibles, and other coverage restrictions. Physicians would be able to focus more on healing their patients instead of “battling insurers over denials and delays,” as Dr. Diljeet K. Singh, president of Physicians for a National Health Program, summed it up in her endorsement of the legislation.

Much of the spending in our current health system is “consumed by administrative middlemen, soaring drug prices, and emergency care for conditions that should have been treated earlier and for less,” said Dr. Alison Galvani, the Yale study’s senior author.

Galvani and her co-authors found that the Medicare for All Act would reduce health spending by lowering pharmaceutical prices, cutting administrative overhead, cracking down on fraudulent billing, preventing avoidable emergency care, and applying savings from Medicare payment rates to all providers. “Our results indicate that the existing [federal] budget is more than sufficient to cover everyone at lower total cost,” they conclude.

Most importantly, a universal health care system would save lives. The Yale researchers calculate that it would prevent around 114,000 people from dying each year due to lack of health care. Their findings are no outlier — other studies have also found that a single-payer system would improve existing coverage while saving money.

Elected Democrats remain divided on Medicare for All, but universal health care is wildly popular among their voters. Several incoming lawmakers campaigned on this issue and won, like Senator-elect Dr. Abdul El-Sayed (D-MI).

Although the Affordable Care Act expanded access to care, it has done so by benefiting the very for-profit insurance companies that contribute to the affordability problem. Far too many people still end up drowning in medical debt.

Universal health care is both sound public policy and a human right. The “right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health” has long been recognized as a fundamental human right under international law that all governments are obligated to respect, protect, and fulfill. Nevertheless, the U.S. remains the only high-income nation in the world without universal health coverage.

We need a health care system that guarantees this human right for all, not one that guarantees more profits for Big Insurance and Wall Street investors. The next Congress must meet the moment by making Medicare for All a reality instead of an empty campaign slogan.