{"id":317338,"date":"2017-07-14T17:06:43","date_gmt":"2017-07-14T16:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/medicare-for-all-wins-backing-of-conservative-southern-democrats\/"},"modified":"2017-07-14T17:06:43","modified_gmt":"2017-07-14T16:06:43","slug":"medicare-for-all-wins-backing-of-conservative-southern-democrats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/medicare-for-all-wins-backing-of-conservative-southern-democrats\/","title":{"rendered":"Medicare for All Wins Backing of Conservative Southern Democrats"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As congressional Republicans try to pass\u00a0an unpopular plan<\/a>\u00a0that would roll back the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and cause\u00a0an estimated 22 million\u00a0<\/a>Americans to lose their health insurance, a House bill to expand the publicly-funded Medicare program from just senior citizens to every American is picking up record support — and not just among the usual progressive suspects but also from conservative Southern Democrats.<\/p>\n

First introduced in 2003 by Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat and Congress’s longest-serving member, the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act (HR 676<\/a>) would provide every US resident with free medically necessary care including primary care and prevention, dietary and nutritional therapies, prescription drugs, emergency care, long-term care, mental health services, dental services and vision care.<\/p>\n

It would be paid for with existing health care funds and by raising personal income taxes on the top 5 percent of income earners, instituting a progressive excise tax on payroll and self-employment income, and taxing unearned income and stock and bond transactions. US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), who advocated for single-payer insurance during his unsuccessful 2016 presidential run,\u00a0has said<\/a>\u00a0he will introduce similar legislation in the Senate following the vote on the Republican ACA rollback plan.<\/p>\n

Medicare for All has the\u00a0backing of numerous medical groups<\/a>\u00a0such as the American Nurses Association, the American Public Health Association and the American Medical Association’s student branch. Other groups that have endorsed it include the Consumer Federation of America, the League of Women Voters and the US Conference of Mayors.<\/p>\n

During the last Congress, Conyers’ bill\u00a0picked up 62 cosponsors<\/a>, all Democrats. Seven months into this Congress, it already\u00a0has 113 cosponsors<\/a> — a majority of the 193-member Democratic caucus.<\/p>\n

That surge in support has come amid a public debate over health care that’s shifted the politics leftward. For example, a recent\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As congressional Republicans try to pass\u00a0an unpopular plan\u00a0that would roll back the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and cause\u00a0an estimated 22 million\u00a0Americans to lose their health insurance, a House bill to expand the publicly-funded Medicare program from just senior citizens to every American is picking up record support — and not just among the usual progressive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-317338","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317338\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}