The solution to America's health-care problem is obvious: Medicare. For. All.

It would be expensive. But it would work.

Medicare. For. All.
(Image credit: GrandeDuc / Alamy Stock Photo)

There is real momentum on the American left toward moving to a single-payer, Medicare-for-all health-care system. With Republicans busy trying to pass a spectacularly unpopular bill to strangle ObamaCare and grind Medicaid down to a tiny stump, simply expanding the most generous and functional part of the welfare state to everyone makes increasing political and practical sense as a bold counter-offer.

Medicare-for-all isn't going to be cheap. California has been considering such a plan recently, and the headline price is $400 billion, according to a state legislative analysis. By American standards, that's an expensive program even for the federal government.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.