The Republicans' push to reduce government's role in healthcare by repealing and replacing Obamacare has emboldened progressive politicians and activists to promote the exact opposite, a single-payer system in which the government would completely run a health system which would automatically be available to every American, USA Today reports.
Although Democrats have no hope of getting such legislation passed on the national level, they have been seeking success in states where they hold power.
In Democrat-dominated California, a single-payer program passed the state Senate on June 1.
However, last week state Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon said he was holding the bill in committee, because it was "woefully incomplete..., including the fact it does not address many serious issues, such as financing, delivery of care, or cost controls, " USA Today reported.
California's plan would cost an estimated $400 billion annually, with half of that needing to come from new revenue.
In New York, another state working on a single-payer plan, Assemblyman Richard Gottfried pointed to mounting opposition to the GOP's Senate plan in Washington as potentially being the catalyst needed to ignite single-payer schemes.
On the national level, Sen. Elizabeth Warren told The Wall Street Journal this week that "President [Barack] Obama tried to move us forward with healthcare coverage by using a conservative model that came from one of the conservative think tanks that had been advanced by a Republican governor in Massachusetts. Now it's time for the next step. And the next step is single-payer."
USA Today reported that more than 100 Democrats in the House have signed on to a single-payer bill introduced by Michigan Rep. John Conyers, which is called Medicare for All because it would eliminate the current 65-and-older requirement for Medicare.
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