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MEDICARE FOR ALL DISAPPEARED. ITS POPULARITY DIDN’T.  
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Meagan Day
November 26, 2025
Jacobin
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_ The demand for Medicare for All went from the center of the
discourse to political exile in record time. But the policy's
popularity never faded. A new poll finds strong majority support for
the neglected idea among Americans across the political spe _

In a survey of 1,207 likely voters conducted November 14–17, 2025,
Data for Progress found that 65 percent of voters support a Medicare
for All system., Drew Angerer / Getty Images

 

In early 2020, all roads in American politics led to Medicare for All.
The policy demand, shorthand for a universal, tax-funded, single-payer
health insurance plan, began its ascent four years prior when it was
elevated by Bernie Sanders’s first presidential campaign. Over the
intervening years, its popularity soared, and debate became intense.
By the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, everyone had an opinion,
and where you stood seemed to say everything about your core values
and fundamental worldview.

For the rising economic populist left, Medicare for All was the
flagship demand — the purest expression
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of the Sanders movement’s ethos
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promising to mobilize ordinary working-class people en masse_, _across
lines of political and demographic difference, in a necessary
challenge to capitalist domination and exploitation. The Medicare for
All army came equipped with political arguments, economic projections,
policy papers, physicians’ opinions, patient testimonies, and
regiments of self-taught true believers ready to talk through the
details with anyone who would listen. As the pressure mounted,
centrists squirmed
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seats, conservatives clutched
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corporations benefiting from the private health insurance status quo
commenced a lobbyist hiring spree
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affirming with their dollars how seriously they took the threat.

Then, in mid-2020, poof. The demand for Medicare for All evaporated.
Sanders’s primary loss and Joe Biden’s presidential victory
squashed the momentum. By 2021, with the policy’s main champion
defeated and an avowed opponent
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in the White House, the proposal migrated almost overnight
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from the center of the primary debate to the margins of respectable
Democratic Party discourse. Even a public option, which Biden had
promised
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to champion as a compromise, disappeared from discussion without a
trace. When the Republicans, under newly reelected Donald Trump, set
out inevitably to destroy Biden’s health care legacy, they were
reduced to ripping up
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enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies — a distant fourth
cousin to the ambitious and once-mighty Medicare for All.

Sixty-five percent of voters support a Medicare for All system. That
includes 78 percent of Democrats, 71 percent of independents, and 49
percent of Republicans.

Still, it’s important to decouple the demand’s short-term
political prospects from its actual popularity among the electorate.
And on this point, a new poll
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from Data for Progress offers some clarity. In a survey of 1,207
likely voters conducted November 14–17, 2025, Data for Progress
found that 65 percent of voters support a Medicare for All system —
described as a “national health insurance program . . . that would
cover all Americans and replace most private health insurance
plans.” That number includes 78 percent of Democrats, 71 percent of
independents, and 49 percent of Republicans.

Data for Progress also tested what happens when respondents are given
more information about what Medicare for All entails. After being told
the policy would “eliminate most private insurance plans and replace
premiums with higher taxes, while guaranteeing health coverage for
everyone and eliminating most out-of-pocket costs like copays and
deductibles,” 63 percent of voters still expressed support,
including 64 percent of independents and a slight plurality of
Republicans.

Data for Progress also tested what happens when respondents are given
more information about what Medicare for All entails. After being told
the policy would “eliminate most private insurance plans and replace
premiums with higher taxes, while guaranteeing health coverage for
everyone and eliminating most out-of-pocket costs like copays and
deductibles,” 63 percent of voters still expressed support,
including 64 percent of independents and a slight plurality of
Republicans.

In her 2017 book, fresh off her presidential contests against first
Sanders and then Trump, Hillary Clinton accused Sanders of campaigning
against her on the promise to give every American a pony
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Like many opponents of Medicare for All, she viewed it as a
superficial policy with shallow support predicated on a lack of
detailed understanding. But if these Data for Progress poll numbers
are any indication, the demand retains majority support when both
policy specifics and counterarguments are presented.

In response to Clinton’s pony remark, Sanders’s economic adviser
Stephanie Kelton explained
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that it would be perfectly feasible to give every American a pony if
the nation pooled its resources to breed enough ponies. Whether
Americans would be interested in pursuing an agenda of equine
abundance is unknown. But the majority do seem to like the idea of
eliminating private health insurance and associated costs — and, for
the most part, are not deterred by the prospect of higher taxes to
achieve it. This shouldn’t be too surprising, as the concept of
spending money to save money is hardly foreign to working-class
Americans, no more difficult to comprehend than the workings of a
Costco membership.

By 2023, even the health insurance industry’s
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trade publications
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were commenting on the near-total disappearance of Medicare for All
from political discourse. While Medicare for All legislation was
resubmitted
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year with over one hundred congressional signatories, it seemed to
lack momentum or the ability to generate conflict. The trade press
predicted, correctly, that Medicare for All would not be a major issue
in the 2024 election, having been replaced by the major health care
issue of reproductive rights. But they also predicted that it would
come roaring back in 2028.

Given current trends, that seems like a safe bet. The political
fortunes of Medicare for All have been volatile, but the underlying
problem has only intensified.

The cost of living is a dominant and pressing concern for American
voters, and health care sits near the center of that anxiety. Health
care costs keep climbing
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vastly outpacing wage growth. Uninsurance and underinsurance are still
rampant
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Tens of millions of US adults carry medical debt
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often considered the most common factor in personal bankruptcy.
Millions of Americans continue to delay or forgo
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care because they cannot afford it. With enhanced ACA subsidies set to
expire
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at the end of this year, enrollees are already facing sticker shock
— some looking at premium increases of 50 percent or more for 2026.
The dysfunction is chronic and worsening, and no amount of
technocratic tinkering will make it go away.

Health care costs remain a major source of hardship in American life
and will therefore no doubt remain a source of tension in American
politics. If Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City’s mayoral
election is any indication, the Sanders-inspired economic left has
plenty of runway, which means the fight over Medicare for All within
the Democratic Party is likely to reignite at some point. Given that
the party has been hemorrhaging working-class voters
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as it struggles to articulate a positive political vision that
ordinary people can connect to, the Democratic establishment would do
well not to undermine it so mercilessly next time.

_MEAGAN DAY is a senior editor at Jacobin._

_JACOBIN is a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist
perspectives on politics, economics, and culture. The print magazine
is released quarterly and reaches 75,000 subscribers, in addition to a
web audience of over 3,000,000 a month._

_Subscribe to Jacobin today_ [[link removed]]_, get
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