By
Ed Kilgore,
political columnist for Intelligencer since 2015
Bernie Sanders has been pushing M4A since 1993.
With the recent upsurge of outspoken progressivism in Democratic primaries, Medicare for All has returned as a chief policy demand. M4A (as it’s often abbreviated) is the favored poll-tested moniker for a single-payer health-care system that would provide universal public insurance regardless of age or means. It has been associated strongly with Bernie Sanders, who first offered single-payer legislation in the House way back in 1993 and introduced what is now the gold-standard proposal in the Senate in 2017, right after his first presidential campaign. But more than that, support for M4A has been the policy proposal that instantly separates progressive sheep from centrist goats in the Democratic ranks.
