What is Single Payer?
Single-payer—or Medicare for All—is simply a streamlined financing mechanism where one entity administers the health care funding and payments. It expands the cost-effective and administratively efficient Medicare program to cover everyone in the United States.
Health care delivery remains private and patients are guaranteed choice of care from providers. The National HCH Council supports the insurance expansions included in the Affordable Care Act, but while this reform is welcome, it does not address many inequities of the health care system.
The National HCH Council supports all efforts to expand comprehensive and affordable health coverage.
Learn more: What Is Single Payer?
Read our Statement: Medicare For All & the HCH Community
*NEW* Comparative Analysis Paper, August 2020, COVID-19 Response in Countries with Single-Payer & Implications for Impoverished Populations
Issue Brief, July 2020: COVID-19 & the HCH Community: Further Illustrating the Benefits of ‘Medicare-for-All’
See a recording of the June 2020 virtual caucus meeting: The Case for Medicare for All: COVID-19 hosted by Rep. Jayapal (D-WA) and Rep. Dingell (D-MI) featuring our own Barbara DiPietro (at minute 41)
Current National Legislation
Get Involved
Visit the Hub of Resources on the Medicare for All Act of 2019
Join Physicians for a National Health Program
Look up local single payer chapters
Sign Up for action alerts from Health Care-Now
Resources
Publications
National Academy of Sciences:Universal healthcare as pandemic preparedness: The lives and costs that could have been saved during the COVID-19 pandemic | June 2022
Congressional Budget Office:Economic Effects of Five Illustrative Single-Payer Health Care Systems: Working Paper 2022-02 | February 2022
Congressional Budget Office:Key Design Components and Considerations for Establishing a Single-Payer Health Care System | May 2019
National Partners
*All National HCH Council advocacy work is funded by dues from Organizational Members of the Council and by private donations. Consider joining the Council or donating to the Council to support this work.