Sponsors (18)
Official title: Establish a Medicare-for-All national health insurance program.
Introduced April 29, 2025 by Bernard Sanders · Last progress April 29, 2025
The bill would extend guaranteed, comprehensive, largely no‑cost health coverage to nearly everyone and strengthen equity and oversight, but it does so by centralizing financing and payments—raising federal spending and taxes, reducing private/employer options, imposing major state and provider transitions, and creating privacy and implementation risks.
All people enrolled (uninsured, underinsured, and current beneficiaries): gain comprehensive, nationally defined health coverage (hospital, primary, mental health, SUD, reproductive incl. abortion, maternity, pediatric, long‑term care, dental/vision/hearing, telehealth) with prohibitions on balance billing and near‑elimination of patient cost‑sharing for covered services.
People who take prescription drugs (low‑income and other beneficiaries): face lower and more predictable drug costs through an annual cap on certain cost‑sharing, reduced Part D thresholds during transition, and a national formulary with price negotiations.
Providers, hospitals, and the health workforce: receive more predictable funding and workforce support through global/annual budgets, quarterly lump‑sum payments, workforce education/recruitment funds, and a dedicated Trust Fund to stabilize financing.
All taxpayers and federal/state budgets: face substantially higher federal spending needs and likely tax increases or reallocation of federal funds to finance the national program and Trust Fund.
Employees, employers, and private insurers: lose the ability to offer or maintain private core coverage that duplicates the national benefits (and several employer‑sponsored options will be banned or constrained), reducing choice for those who prefer supplemental or alternative plans.
State governments and Medicaid beneficiaries: risk significant fiscal pressure because states must meet new maintenance‑of‑effort/expenditure floors while losing federal matching payments for most Medicaid/CHIP services furnished after the effective date.
Based on analysis of 22 sections of legislative text.
Creates a national single-payer Medicare for All program with automatic enrollment, comprehensive benefits, near-elimination of patient cost-sharing, a trust fund and national budget, and major ERISA and Medicaid changes.
Creates a nationwide single-payer “Medicare for All” health insurance program that makes every U.S. resident entitled to a comprehensive, no-cost-at-point-of-care benefits package (hospital, primary care, prescription drugs, mental health and SUD treatment, reproductive and gender-affirming care, long-term care, dental/vision/hearing, telehealth, and more). It requires automatic enrollment, prohibits private duplicate coverage of covered benefits, sets strong anti-discrimination rules and enforcement, and phases benefits in for children earlier than for adults. Establishes governance and financing structures: a national health budget, a Medicare for All Trust Fund funded by transfers and specified revenue changes, provider participation and quality standards administered by HHS/CMS, extensive state coordination and maintenance-of-effort rules for some Medicaid services, new ERISA and workers’ compensation rules to prevent duplicate benefits, and multiple implementation, reporting, and cost-containment mechanisms. Benefits generally begin January 1 of the fourth calendar year after enactment, with children under 19 covered sooner (first calendar year after enactment).