Senate Rejects Single-Payer Healthcare

A Senate amendment to enact a single-payer healthcare system identical to the plan supported by a majority of House Democrats failed to gain the vote of a single senator on Thursday.

Introduced by Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), the amendment contained the exact text of Rep. John Conyers’ (D-MI) Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, which is backed by 115 of the House’s 194 Democrats. Daines offered the amendment to put senators on the record over their support for government-run healthcare even though he opposes the idea himself, telling his colleagues that it’s "time to fish or cut bait."

However, the Senate Democratic caucus largely refused to bite. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called Daines’ amendment a "political gimmick" because the Montanan didn’t plan to vote for it himself. Sanders said he would only vote for the bill if six or seven Republicans also did so, otherwise he would vote “present.” He suggested other Democratic senators do the the same.

Sanders added that he will introduce a Senate version of the single-payer healthcare plan in the future.

Of the Democratic caucus’s 48 senators, 43 took Sanders up on that suggestion and voted present, but five decided to go on record against the House’s single-payer healthcare plan. The five who voted against it were Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Jon Tester (D-MT), Joe Donnelly (D-IN), and Angus King (I-ME) — all but King face reelection in 2018 in states won by President Donald Trump last year.

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— Eric Revell

(Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr / Creative Commons)