Posted on 11/12/2026 4:27:02 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
The debate over the progressive push for Medicare for All has dominated the early days following Democrats’ landslide victory last week.
But leading progressives are floating another idea as a first step that could get broader buy-in from the Democratic caucus: lowering the Medicare age from 65 to 55.
Incoming House Ways and Means Committee Chair Richard Neal (D-Mass.) told us he’s open to the idea and could even mark it up next year.
“I’m open to that. I don’t know about [age] 55, but I’m open to a conversation about it,” Neal said. “I think that’s the way to approach this.”
Neal said he didn’t know the ideal age. Asked whether his committee could mark up a bill to lower it next year, he answered simply, “Yes.”
Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), incoming House Energy and Commerce Committee chair, said he’s open to multiple options for getting to universal coverage.
“Another proposal is what was originally in the ACA on the House side, which was the public option,” Pallone told us. “These are all things that we should be looking at.”
Backstory. Medicare for All has become a critical issue on the left over the last decade, largely thanks to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), although the issue goes back much longer.
After the election, Sanders called on Democrats to lower the Medicare age to 55 through budget reconciliation, which can pass on a party-line vote, as an “immediate first step.” Sanders also wants to add dental, vision and hearing coverage to Medicare and expand children’s coverage.
Other big Medicare for All proponents see lowering the qualifying age as a good opening move, though they’d want more eventually. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) is open to it as an initial step, but she wants a committee markup of the full legislation.
(Excerpt) Read more at punchbowl.news ...
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Oh yeah, hammer the young people more with increased Medicare taxes. That’s what they voted for!
Mandate the retirement age to 55. 🙄
Lower the age for browns
Raise the age for Whites
How do you accelerate the rate of Social Security going bankrupt?
Who cares? I'm a Boomer. I'm cashing out! As long as my checks keep coming, I couldn't care less if everyone else gets screwed over. That's their problem, not mine.
The greedy left doesn’t seem to realize that “Medicare” is not free, but expensive government insurance. They have started a slogan that sounds nice: “Medicare for all!”. How much money will be funneled into Bernie Sanders’s pocket with all the Medicare payments piling up? I thought Obamacare was supposed to solve all their problems. These young people laughed when I said democrats would raise taxes.
Pretty smart. It’s called gradualism. Starts with my nephew getting on his parents health care plan up until age 26. He didn’t need health care at that age so no big deal-right? Think of the frog being boiled.
We lost the senate seat in Iowa. Next one’s up in ‘28. If they end up with 2 senators and a democrat governor I’d go for the ethanol subsidies. It should be done now. Slow at first. If we got nothing to lose cut em’ off at the knees. Doable?
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