Midterm Wave Sets a Course for ‘Medicare for All’ Fight

LANSING, Mich. — Fifteen years working as an emergency room nurse has convinced Kim Bogan that the only way to fix the American healthcare system is to tear it down and start over. Her patients arriving for triage are sicker than ever. They can’t afford many of the prescriptions they get in the ER. And sometimes when patients die, she wonders if she could have saved them had she not been caring for five or six other people at once. That’s why she spent the past year shuttling between 12-hour shifts at this city’s Sparrow Hospital and campaigning for Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrat who made “Medicare for All” a signature issue in his congressional campaign and is now a senator-elect. But she realizes that just because progressive candidates successfully campaigned on some form of the policy in states such as Texas, Iowa, Maine, and Michigan, it doesn’t mean Medicare for All will be an easy sell. “Nobody expected that,” Bogan said. Medicare for All typically refers to a government health program that would guarantee Americans coverage by replacing most or all private insurance. Critics are already pointing out that, even in a blue wave as massive as the 2026 midterms, the most vocal Med...