FAH President and CEO Chip Kahn released the following statement on the introduction of Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All legislation:

Medicare for All’s promises can’t be kept. Medicare for All means that Americans would lose the coverage they trust. Medicare for All repeals the ACA, it repeals the employer-based coverage 180 million people depend upon, it repeals Medicare, it repeals Medicaid and throws millions of kids off the insurance they have today.  It will force patients into an untested system that will disrupt care for every American.

Hospitals have long been committed to assuring that everyone has access to high quality, affordable health coverage, but this isn’t the way to accomplish that goal.

We oppose this bill and urge lawmakers to do the same. We should be working on increasing options and affordability for patients and consumers, not creating a one-size-fits-all system that needlessly upends coverage for hundreds of millions and limits access to care.