‘Medicare for All’ Message Attracts Voters Buckling Under Medical Bills

LANSING, Mich. — Christina Starks-Clay doesn’t know how “Medicare for All” would work exactly, but she’s willing to bet it’d be better than what she has now. Standing in line for U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s town hall in the state’s capital in September, she whipped out her phone to pull up a screenshot. It was of the $1,000 cashier’s check she’d picked up at the bank that day to pay down a chunk of her son’s dental bills. An early childhood special education paraprofessional, she still owed $389, even with good dental insurance. Her own cleaning a few weeks before cost $600. She tried to talk herself down at the bank, to focus on being grateful for what she could afford. “I’m like, ‘Tina, OK, you were in a position for this moment to do this,’” she said. “A lot of people couldn’t do what I had to do today. I couldn’t do it. But I did it. So I need to hear, how are you going to make this better for everyone?” Many who waited in the hot sun that afternoon in a line stretching blocks through downtown Lansing shared similar anxieties. A man ahead of Starks-Clay talked about watching his brother rack up thousands of dollars in medical debt. A professor emeritus at nearby Mich...