Dems plan to hold hearings on Medicare-for-all legislation

WASHINGTON — The new Democratic majority in the House will hold the first hearings on Medicare-for-all legislation, a longtime goal of the party’s left, after Speaker Nancy Pelosi lent her support for the process.

“It’s a huge step forward to have the speaker’s support,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., who will be the House sponsor of the legislation, usually denoted as HR 676. “We have to push on the inside while continuing to build support for this on the outside.”

Some version of universal health care has been a Democratic goal for decades. The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, first introduced in 2003 by then-Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, has become the vehicle for Democrats who want to bring single-payer, Canada-style health care to the United States.

That legislation was typically sidelined, even when Democrats had power; in 2009 and 2010, when the House passed the Affordable Care Act, the “Medicare-for-all” package was not part of the discussion. But in his 2016 campaign for president, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., championed Medicare-for-all. The following year, for the first time, a majority of House Democrats co-sponsored HR 676.

Pelosi, who had been one of those co-sponsors, said throughout the 2018 campaign that Democrats were free to discuss many other health care programs. She strongly suggested that a Democratic House would at least hold hearings on the far-reaching Jayapal bill; on Wednesday, Jayapal got Pelosi’s commitment to hearings in the Rules and Budget committees.

The incoming chairmen of those committees, Reps. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and John Yarmuth, D-Ky., support Medicare-for-all. “The American people deserve to know what the various options for Medicare-for-all would mean to them as health care consumers and taxpayers,” Yarmuth said.

Jayapal said supporters hope to release legislation in “the next couple of weeks” and hold hearings in a number of committees.

Polling has found support for Medicare-for-all at anywhere from 58 to 70 percent.