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By Megan Cartwright
Associate News Editor
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Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat, has introduced the "Medicare for America Act," which would open an expanded Medicare program to every resident while allowing people to retain qualifying employer-sponsored insurance.
According to the congresswoman's press release on Friday, the proposal would eliminate deductibles, cap premiums at eight percent of income and limit annual out-of-pocket spending to $3,500 for an individual and $5,000 for a household.
Its current prospects appear limited as the newly introduced measure has no cosponsors and would have to advance through a Republican-controlled Congress.
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Per the United States Census Bureau, about 26.7 million Americans (7.9 percent) were uninsured throughout 2025. Employment-based insurance remained the country's most common form of coverage in 2025, covering 53.5 percent of the population for at least part of the year.
The expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies has also increased costs for marketplace customers. The KFF estimated that those expirations would push average annual premium payments among subsidized marketplace enrollees from $888 in 2025 to $1,904 in 2026, an increase of 114 percent.
DeLauro first introduced a version of Medicare for America in 2018.
Newsweek reached out to DeLauro via email for comment on Monday.
How the Plan Would Work
Unlike a single-payer system that replaces most private insurance, DeLauro’s proposal is built around choice.
Every U.S. resident would become eligible for Medicare for America, while people without insurance would be automatically enrolled. Someone offered insurance through an employer could stay with that coverage or opt into the new Medicare program instead. If an employee chose Medicare for America, the employer would still be required to contribute to the premium.
Employers themselves could also use Medicare for America to provide worker coverage. Private employer plans that remained would have to meet stronger requirements, including dental, vision and hearing benefits.
That distinction separates the proposal from the Medicare for All Act introduced by Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Washington state Democrat, in April 2025, which would establish a national Medicare-for-All insurance program and prohibit duplicative coverage.
What Patients Would Pay
Medicare for America would have no deductible and would cap premiums at 8 percent of household income. People earning less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level would pay neither premiums nor out-of-pocket costs.
Annual out-of-pocket expenses would be limited to $3,500 for an individual and $5,000 for a household, with smaller limits for families earning below 600 percent of the poverty level.
Coverage would encompass dental, vision and hearing services, prescription drugs, maternity and reproductive care, mental-health and substance-use treatment and home- and community-based long-term services. Cost sharing would disappear for categories including preventive and emergency care, chronic disease management and care for children under 21.
The proposal would also prohibit prior authorization and step therapy and remove the 24-month Medicare waiting period for people with disabilities.
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How DeLauro Wants to Control Costs
The legislation reaches beyond insurance coverage to change how health care is priced.
Providers would be required to accept Medicare for America rates from employer and Medicare Advantage plans under an all-payer rate-setting system. Payments for primary care and mental-health services would rise by at least 30 percent, while the legislation would introduce site-neutral payments and seek to curb Medicare Advantage overpayments.
Drug pricing would also face an overhaul. The health secretary would be required to negotiate prices for all covered medicines, with competitive licensing available when manufacturers refuse what the legislation considers a fair price.
How the Bill Would Be Paid For
DeLauro proposes financing the program partly by repealing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which enacted major spending reductions and policy shifts across immigration, healthcare, and social programs, and imposing new taxes on high earners, including a 5 percent surtax on income above $500,000.
She said the goal was to guarantee coverage without taking away people's existing choices.
"If you like your current employer coverage, you keep it," DeLauro said when announcing the legislation. "If you want Medicare, it is yours."
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Could It Actually Pass?
For now, the proposal faces formidable political obstacles.
H.R. 10924 was introduced on October 29 and referred to six House committees, including Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce. Current congressional tracking shows DeLauro as its sole sponsor, with no cosponsors.
Republicans currently control both chambers of Congress, with 219 Republicans in the House and 53 Republican senators as of November 2. That gives GOP leaders control over whether a sweeping Democratic health care proposal advances, making enactment during the remaining weeks of the 119th Congress unlikely absent a dramatic bipartisan shift.
There is considerably more Democratic backing for another universal-coverage proposal already before Congress. Jayapal’s Medicare for All Act, H.R. 3069, has accumulated 118 Democratic cosponsors and no Republican cosponsors, according to congressional-legislation tracking data.
Other health proposals active this Congress take narrower approaches. They include the bipartisan INSULIN Act of 2026, aimed at capping insulin costs, and a measure introduced in October that would lower Medicare eligibility to age 50.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors for this story: Ben Kelly and Anthony Murray.
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