El-Sayed's Offer: Call It 'Trumpcare for All' and Pass Medicare for All

Photo: U.S. Senate / Public domain

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed has a simple idea. It might be the most practical idea in Washington right now. He says this to the other side: call it "Trumpcare for All" and pass Medicare for All. Put his name on it. Put any name on it. The name does not matter. The health care does. And if the price of giving every American health care is letting the other team take the credit, El-Sayed says that is a price worth paying.

El-Sayed is a doctor. He has spent his career looking at what happens when people cannot afford a doctor. He has seen the bills. He has seen the choices: the insulin or the rent, the inhaler or the groceries, the treatment or the eviction. He has seen people die from diseases that are treatable, because the treatment costs too much. And he is done pretending that this is normal. It is not normal. It is a choice, made by a system that puts profits first and people second.

Medicare for All is not a new idea. It means every American gets health care, paid for through taxes, the same way every American gets a road or a fire department. No premiums. No deductibles that wipe out a family's savings. No network that drops your doctor. You get sick, you get care. That is the whole idea. And the reason it has not happened is not that it does not work. It is that the health insurance industry makes billions of dollars from the system we have, and it will spend billions to keep it.

So El-Sayed made the offer. He knows the politics. He knows that a president who loves his name on things might like the sound of "Trumpcare for All." He knows that the other side cares more about branding than about policy. So he is willing to let them have the name. Take the name. Take the credit. Just pass the bill. The patients do not care what it is called. They care that the insulin is there. They care that the chemotherapy is covered. They care that their kid's asthma inhaler is not a luxury.

Here is why it could work. The health care fight has been stuck for a decade because each side would rather score points than solve the problem. El-Sayed's offer breaks that. It gives the other side something they value, a name, a win, a headline, in exchange for something the country needs, health care for everyone. And it calls the bluff. If the other side really believes in the name more than the policy, they will take the deal. If they refuse, they will have told the country the truth: they never cared about the health care at all. They cared about the fight.

Health care is not a slogan. It is a mother who can take her child to the doctor. It is a worker who can get the surgery she needs. It is a grandfather who can afford the medicine that keeps him alive. The name on the bill does not matter. The care does.

El-Sayed made an offer. Take the name. Pass the bill. Give America health care.

WEAR YOUR VOICE.