Medicare for All
Because It's Your Right and America's Responsibility

MEDICARE FOR ALL is presented here as an alternative model for the United States health care system. It builds on the successes of the current Medicare program for people 65 years and older, the lessons from other industrialized countries, and the priorities of Healthy People 2010, the federal government's national health objectives. We use the term Medicare because it is widely understood and appreciated as a health system available to people regardless of residence, income, or social status, and offering a wide range of services, with low overhead costs.

Our aim is to take these succcssful models to achieve the following goals:

1. Rein in health care expenditures,
2. Provide access to health care for all populations,
3. Improve the effectiveness and efficiency of health care delivery,
4. Decrease health disparities, and
5. Improve basic health status of all Americans.

MEDICARE FOR ALL encompasses features that promote accountability and responsibility among all parties: individuals and families, health care providers, taxpayers, and public officials. Most especially, we have structured the program in a way that respects the history in the U.S. of shared responsibility for health among federal, state, and local governments.

MEDICARE FOR ALL is managed by three governing bodies. The National Health Board is comprised of individuals appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The Board is responsible for allocating funds to states, setting minimum performance standards, setting minimum benefit packages for Americans, regulating licensure of the health professional workforces, developing and monitoring evaluation tools for states and serving as a clearing house for states to disseminate information about best practices as well as health status indicators. The State Health Boards are comprised of a representative sample of the population. They report to the National Health Board and are responsible for attaining goals for service effectiveness and efficiency, quality, expenditure growth, and health status. Local Health Districts are governed by a board of individuals elected by district residents and are responsible for coordinating and planning health services and public health activities in their respective areas to assure access, improve health, and avoid unnecessary duplication of services. They report to the State Board of Health. Health providers continue to operate as they currently do, but receive global budgets from their local health district.

Financing for MEDICARE FOR ALL comes from national progressively levied individual and corporate income taxes that will finance 75% of the cost of the health system. Another 15% will be supported through individual premiums, collected through payroll deduction (or, for non-employed people, through the IRS tax collection system). These premiums will be assessed on a sliding-scale base, with zero cost for those at or below 100% of the federal poverty level, and full premium share for those at and above 300% FPL. Another 10% of the cost will be collected through co-payments at the time of service for all services except prevention services that have been proven effective. The existing Medicare payroll taxes are eliminated, as are employer-paid premiums and the tax deductions for employer-sponsored coverage. The current Medicare Trust Fund will be used to finance MEDICARE FOR ALL.

States are not limited in how they spend money allocated to them as long as they meet the basic tenets of MEDICARE FOR ALL.

Back to top