Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will introduce his Medicare for All bill on the Senate floor on Wednesday, a plan that he has said will cost the U.S. $6 trillion less than the current healthcare system. Medicare for All has gained support in recent months among Democrats following Sanders’s promotion of the proposal during the 2016 campaign, and the unveiling and subsequent failure of the Republican healthcare plan, which would have eliminated health coverage for up to 32 million Americans.
As of this writing Monday afternoon, seven members of the Senate Democratic Caucus had announced they would sign on as co-sponsors of the bill:
The following 40 members of the caucus, which includes Maine’s independent senator Angus King, have yet to publicly announce their co-sponsorship or official support of the bill:
Gillibrand has said she intends to announce her support for the bill on Wednesday, while Leahy was rumored to be planning a co-sponsorship of the bill. While those who have pledged their public support of the plan are still in a small minority, the fact that Democratic senators appear to feel mounting pressure to back Medicare for All demonstrates the success of the progressive campaign to make universal healthcare part of the Democratic platform. Writing in Vox last week, Dylan Matthews described the caucus’s public shift in favor of universal healthcare since the beginning of the Trump administration as a “stunning” development. He wrote: