The Constituent Institute

Lawmaker toolkit · Health care
No. 01 · October 2026

Medicare for All: the toolkit

The bill's own words, a resolution your council or legislature can pass, and answers to everything the industry will say.

For candidates, legislators and their staff · Pair with the policy brief · Figures sourced in the notes

01The bill, in its own words

The Medicare for All Act of 2025 is H.R. 3069 in the House (Reps. Jayapal and Dingell) and S. 1506 in the Senate (Sen. Sanders). These are the provisions to know, quoted from the introduced House text.1

Universal coverageSec. 102
Every individual who is a resident of the United States is entitled to benefits for health care services under this Act.

Coverage follows the person, not the job. Nobody enrolls, re-enrolls or falls through a gap.

No cost-sharingSec. 202
The Secretary shall ensure that no cost-sharing, including deductibles, coinsurance, copayments, or similar charges, is imposed on an individual for any benefits provided under this Act.

Care is paid for in advance through public financing, not at the counter.

Freedom of choiceSec. 103
Any individual entitled to benefits under this Act may obtain health services from any institution, agency, or individual qualified to participate under this Act.

No networks, so no out-of-network bills. Patients choose their doctors; insurers no longer do.

Comprehensive benefitsSecs. 201, 204

Eighteen categories, including hospital and outpatient care, primary and preventive care, prescription drugs and devices, mental health and substance use treatment, laboratory services, reproductive and maternity care, oral health, audiology and vision, rehabilitative services, emergency transportation, hospice, and long-term services and supports, prioritizing care at home.

Drug pricesSec. 617
the Secretary shall […] negotiate with pharmaceutical manufacturers the prices (including discounts, rebates, and other price concessions) that may be charged to the Medicare for All Program
Workers in the old systemSec. 601(a)(8)
For up to 5 years […] at least 1 percent of the budget shall be allocated to programs providing assistance to workers who perform functions in the administration of the health insurance system […] who may experience economic dislocation as a result of the implementation of this Act.
The transitionSecs. 106, 1001

Benefits begin two years after enactment. One year in, people under 19 and 55 or older can enroll, and anyone else can buy in to a transitional plan.

Ellipses mark omitted words. Global budgets for hospitals (Sec. 611), the ban on duplicative private coverage (Sec. 107) and the trust fund (Sec. 701) are summarized in the brief.

02Model resolution

City councils, county boards and state legislatures can go on record for national Medicare for All. Fill in your body below, then copy the text. Local figures make it stronger; add your area's uninsured rate from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey.

Model text from The Constituent Institute. Free to adapt; no credit needed. Figures from notes 2 to 5, 7, 8 and 16, plus Himmelstein et al. on bankruptcies in the brief. Built in your browser; nothing you type is saved or sent.

03Answering the industry

Seven arguments you will hear, and the answer to each. Lead with the line, back it with one number, then stop.

They say"It costs $32 trillion."

That number counts money we already spend and calls it new. The same study found the country would spend about $2 trillion less on health care over ten years.

  • The $32.6 trillion figure from the Mercatus Center is new federal spending that replaces premiums and out-of-pocket costs. Its own estimate of total national health spending fell by about $2.05 trillion from 2022 to 2031.6
  • 19 of 22 single-payer cost studies found savings in the first year.7
They say"It will raise your taxes."

You already pay for health care. You just call it a premium, a deductible and a copay. Medicare for All replaces those bills, and most families come out ahead.

  • A family plan through work averages $28,303 a year, and the worker pays $7,471 of it directly, before any deductible.8
  • The Lancet analysis found savings concentrated among lower-income households.9
They say"People like their private insurance."

People like their doctors. Insurance is the part that denies the claim. Under Medicare for All you can see any doctor you want.

  • Insurers selling HealthCare.gov plans denied 19% of in-network claims in 2024. Only 5% of denials cited medical necessity.10
  • Job-based coverage ends when the job does. When pandemic protections ended, about 25 million people lost Medicaid, 69% of them for paperwork reasons.11
They say"Government health care means waiting lists and rationing."

We ration care right now, by price. Medicare for All is public insurance: the same doctors and hospitals, paid by one public plan, like the Medicare 70 million Americans already rely on.

  • 28% of adults skipped or postponed care in the past year because of cost.12
  • The U.S. ranked last of ten wealthy countries on access to care in 2024.13
  • Medicare covered about 70 million people as of 2026.14
They say"Hospitals will close if they're paid Medicare rates."

Hospitals spend a fortune fighting insurers over bills. Take away the billing war and give them a steady budget, and they can spend that money on patients.

  • Private plans paid hospitals 254% of Medicare prices on average in 2022, with wide variation by state.15
  • Administration consumed 34.2% of U.S. health spending in 2017, twice Canada's share.16
  • The bill pays hospitals through global budgets, a predictable lump sum, instead of claim-by-claim billing (Sec. 611).1
They say"It will kill insurance jobs."

The bill sets aside money for those workers on purpose. And for everyone else, it ends job lock: nobody stays in a job just to keep their coverage.

  • At least 1% of the program's budget, for up to five years, goes to workers in insurance and billing jobs affected by the change (Sec. 601(a)(8)).1
They say"It's too big a change, too fast."

We have done this before. Medicare went from a signature to covering every senior in under a year. This bill takes two, and starts with kids and people over 55.

  • President Johnson signed Medicare into law on July 30, 1965. Coverage began on July 1, 1966.22
  • The bill phases in over two years, with a buy-in during the first year (Secs. 106, 1001).1

04Lines that land

Short enough for a debate answer, a mailer or a post. Each one is true and sourced in this toolkit.

The last line is only for candidates who refuse health industry and corporate PAC money.

05Know the opposition

The money. Health interests reported $743.9 million in federal lobbying in 2024, more than any other sector, and $460.8 million so far in 2026.17,18 The seven largest insurers took in almost $1.7 trillion in revenue in 2025.19

The coalition. In 2018, as Medicare for All gained support, industry groups formed the Partnership for America's Health Care Future to fight it, along with a public option and a Medicare buy-in.20

Members included

  • America's Health Insurance Plans
  • Blue Cross Blue Shield Association
  • PhRMA
  • American Hospital Association
  • Federation of American Hospitals

When their ads run in your district, name who paid for them.

Notes

  1. H.R. 3069, Medicare for All Act of 2025, as introduced (GovInfo)
  2. U.S. Census Bureau, Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2025
  3. CMS, National Health Expenditure fact sheet, 2024 data
  4. Wilper et al., American Journal of Public Health, 2009 (Harvard Gazette)
  5. Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker, health spending in the U.S. and other countries
  6. People's Policy Project on the Mercatus Center's 2018 study by Charles Blahous
  7. Cai et al., PLOS Medicine, 2020
  8. KFF, 2026 Employer Health Benefits Survey
  9. Galvani et al., The Lancet, 2020
  10. KFF, claims denials and appeals in ACA Marketplace plans, 2024
  11. KFF, Medicaid unwinding concludes, 25 million lost coverage, 2024
  12. KFF, Americans' challenges with health care costs
  13. Commonwealth Fund, Mirror, Mirror 2024 press release and rankings
  14. CMS, Medicare Monthly Enrollment data
  15. RAND, prices paid to hospitals by private health plans, 2024 (2022 data)
  16. Himmelstein et al., administrative costs in the U.S. and Canada, Annals of Internal Medicine, 2020
  17. OpenSecrets, federal lobbying set a new record in 2024
  18. OpenSecrets, health sector lobbying, 2026
  19. Wendell Potter, Health Care Un-covered, Big Insurance's $1.7 trillion year, 2026
  20. BenefitsPRO, health care stakeholders unite against Medicare for All, 2019
  21. Gallup, November 2025
  22. Social Security Administration history, the signing of the Medicare bill, July 30, 1965
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