Are voters finally going to hear a debate on Medicare for All? Maine Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson doesn't seem to have thought about it very hard, other than as a slogan. And Michigan's Abdul El-Sayed is now trying to deceive voters by pretending that the rallying cry of "Medicare for All" doesn't really mean Medicare for all.
Mr. Jackson suggested at Maine's first Senate debate on Tuesday that the way to pay for nationalizing U.S. healthcare is by "prioritizing where we're spending our money, not in forever wars, not in ICE." What an example of magical thinking. Mr. Jackson and his fellow Democrats can call to disband ICE, as he did again Tuesday, but its budget is a drop in the ocean of Medicare for All, which would cost the government trillions of dollars a year.
A 2018 estimate of Sen. Bernie Sanders's bill put the price tag at $32.6 trillion over a decade, even under wildly optimistic assumptions. That figure, said analyst Charles Blahous, assumed all provider payments could be cut to Medicare rates, "more than 40% lower than private insurance rates." While proponents of Mr. Sanders's plan often claim taxes would simply replace today's insurance costs, there's still a huge gap, and Mr. El-Sayed is promising zero premiums, copays or deductibles.
Medicare for All also still means forcing Americans into a government system that millions don't want. Mr. Jackson didn't attempt to deny it, even after Republican Sen. Susan Collins went after him for wanting "big government to take over healthcare, to abolish private insurance that people, such as the workers at Bath Iron Works, are happy with." This is a big vulnerability for Mr. Jackson, since 47.5% of Mainers had employer health coverage in 2024, per the Kaiser Family Foundation.
In Michigan it was 50.3%. More than half the state has employer coverage that Mr. El-Sayed's socialist allies want to make illegal. Hence his effort to muddy the waters. "If families want to keep their private health insurance," he told a Thursday debate, "that's fine by me." It's an astounding way to mislead voters.
When progressives demand Medicare for All, they mean it. Here's a line from the version Mr. Sanders introduced last year. "It shall be unlawful," the legislation says, "to sell health insurance coverage that duplicates the benefits provided under the Medicare for All Program." The House bill, sponsored by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, includes a similar line. This is Medicare for All. Today's private plans, outlawed.
Mr. El-Sayed's fig leaf seems to be proposing to delete that provision. Yet the result hardly would differ. "Medicare should be automatic, for everyone," Mr. El-Sayed's campaign says. "Medicare for All does not have to ban additional private insurance through unions or employers, although Medicare for All should make those choices redundant and unnecessary." So instead of making private plans illegal, big government would squash them.
Recall President Obama's immortal line on ObamaCare: "If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it." After millions of cancellations, the left-leaning PolitiFact labeled that the "lie of the year." Now his party is embracing the error, campaigning outright on the idea of giving the same treatment to some 160 million Americans with employer coverage. The Democratic message in 2026 couldn't be clearer: If you like your plan, sorry, you can't keep it.
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