Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Dr. Abdul El-Sayed has a plan for Medicare for All, and it does not start with a sweeping bill and a signing ceremony. It starts with fixing the Medicare that already exists.
In a post on X on Sunday, El-Sayed shared a clip from his interview with The New York Times on Friday. "Here's how we get Medicare for All done," he wrote.
Here's how we get Medicare for All done:
Make Medicare whole (no one can keep all the parts straight!)
Include vision, dental, and hearing.
Begin extending to more people, starting with children.
We arrive at Medicare for All, which means great Medicare for everyone. pic.twitter.com/9ZNY5yp9WB
— Dr. Abdul El-Sayed (@AbdulElSayed) September 26, 2026
The Three Steps, In Order
El-Sayed's post laid out the sequence plainly: "Make Medicare whole (no one can keep all the parts straight!)," then "Include vision, dental, and hearing," then "Begin extending to more people, starting with children." The end state, as he put it, is "Medicare for All, which means great Medicare for everyone."
In the clip, El-Sayed made clear that even if Medicare for All passed in January 2029, "the steps would be the same because you're not going to, there's no light switch in the White House that turns on Medicare for all."
That is the part worth sitting with. The policy does not arrive fully formed. It gets built.
Why Medicare Needs Fixing First
El-Sayed described Medicare as "extremely porous." Seniors, he said, complain about "all these different parts" and the lack of coverage for vision, dental, and hearing. He also noted that many seniors are enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans and "they like them," adding, "that would be hard to take away."
His fix: a full Part D plus vision, dental, and hearing coverage, with zero copay, deductible, and premium. "If you offered that as traditional Medicare, the speed with which everybody would jump from Advantage would turn your head," he said.
That is a striking claim about consumer behavior. Seniors are not loyal to Medicare Advantage as a brand. They are loyal to what it covers and what it costs. Make traditional Medicare cover more for less, and the math does the persuading.
Then You Open The Door
The second step, El-Sayed said, is extending Medicare to more people. "I think kids are obvious," he said, describing children as "uncommonly healthy" and, when not healthy, "very sick."
From there, he said eligibility would move down from 65 to 60 and "down into the 50s." He added: "What I'm articulating is great Medicare for everyone."
Notice the framing. This is not a sudden nationalization of health insurance. It is a widening of an existing program, one age bracket at a time, starting with the cheapest and most sympathetic population.
The Gaps He Is Talking About
Original Medicare generally does not cover routine dental care, eye exams for prescription glasses, or hearing aids, and Part B generally carries a monthly premium. Some retirees buy Medigap coverage to help with deductibles and coinsurance.
Those gaps are not hypothetical. In June, the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services found Medicare Advantage insurers denied about 13% of requests for skilled nursing facility care in June 2024. Nearly all denials that were appealed were later approved.
Read that again. The denials were mostly wrong, and you only found out if you fought. That is the kind of friction El-Sayed is pointing at when he calls the system porous.
Disclaimer: This content was produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by MarketDash editors.
