{"id":886880,"date":"2026-10-18T18:30:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T18:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/886880\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T18:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T18:30:13","slug":"before-medicare-for-all-this-senator-wants-medicaid-for-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/886880\/","title":{"rendered":"Before \u2018Medicare for All,\u2019 This Senator Wants \u2018Medicaid for Kids\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>(Photo illustration by Bill Kuchman\/The Bulwark | Photos: Getty, Shutterstock)<\/p>\n

ONE REASON HEALTH CARE is such a good issue for the Democrats in this year\u2019s midterms is that pretty much everybody from the party\u2019s different factions agrees on the problem and the solution.<\/p>\n

For the moment.<\/p>\n

In the short term, the problem is that Donald Trump and the Republican party cut Medicaid, then refused to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies, putting health care at risk for tens of millions of Americans.<\/p>\n

The solution is to undo the cuts and renew the subsidies, which is precisely what Democratic leaders say is at the top of their agenda<\/a> for a hypothetical new Congress and\u2014if Trump won\u2019t go along\u2014a hypothetical trifecta two years later.<\/p>\n

But the American health care system had big problems even before Trump and the Republicans delivered those blows to Medicaid and \u201cObamacare.\u201d Millions of people lacked insurance, though far fewer than before the Affordable Care Act, and millions more struggled with high premiums or out-of-pocket costs.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Democrats are talking about next steps for finally getting to truly universal coverage\u2014which, in turn, has restarted old arguments about whether to seek a total health care sector reset with Medicare for All or to seek more incremental changes, some of which would still be highly ambitious and some of which would not.<\/p>\n

That debate got a ton of attention in the primaries. And while it has subsided a bit since, because it\u2019s now Democrats versus Republicans rather than Democrats against each other, it is sure to kick up as soon as the midterms are over.<\/p>\n

One person who has been thinking a lot about that debate is Andy Kim<\/a>, the Democratic junior senator from New Jersey. He\u2019s already got an idea for how the party should move forward if it gets the chance to legislate: He wants to act quickly to guarantee health insurance to all children as a first step toward bigger and more comprehensive reforms, through a proposal<\/a> he calls \u201cMediKids<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

It sounds intuitively simple, which is a bit deceptive once you get into the policy weeds. The thirteen-page bill<\/a> Kim and three cosponsors introduced in July comes with all kinds of unanswered questions and, if implemented, would force all kinds of tradeoffs. Those include possible effects on existing private insurance and, naturally, the fiscal impact.<\/p>\n

But those things would be true of any major health care proposal, as they would be for sticking with the status quo. And MediKids has plenty going for it, including the potential to keep the party united and to build some momentum for bigger changes, all while helping a bunch of children get health care they desperately need.<\/p>\n

As Kim made clear to me in an interview\u2014which you can watch below\u2014that\u2019s not a bad sales pitch.<\/p>\n

KIM, WHO HAS BEEN IN CONGRESS for less than ten years and in the Senate for less than two, is not especially well known either to the public at large or inside the wonky world of health policy. But he sits on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. And health care has played a key role in his political career, which started in 2017 when the newly elected Trump and the Republican Congress set out to repeal the Affordable Care Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At the time, Kim\u2019s wife was pregnant with their second child, whom doctors had determined was seriously underweight and at risk of severe health problems, and possibly not surviving at all. \u201cThe doctors came in and talked to us, and they said, \u2018You know, there\u2019s a problem,\u2019 which is the last thing you want to hear when you\u2019re there for an ultrasound,\u201d Kim told me.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was devastating to get this news,\u201d Kim went on to say, \u201cand while I\u2019m there taking my wife to the hospital constantly for different therapies, to see what we can do to get the weight up, I was watching the TV and I was watching the news, and my own congressman from New Jersey is leading the charge on trying to gut pre-existing condition protections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kim was referring to Tom MacArthur<\/a>, a House Republican whose deal with GOP leaders, hatched quietly when it appeared negotiations had broken down, got legislation through the House and over to the Senate. Repeal never got through the upper chamber, stopped there by the dramatic thumbs-down vote<\/a> of Arizona Republican John McCain. But Kim ran for Congress, making a defense of the Affordable Care Act and its protections for people with pre-existing conditions the centerpiece of his campaign.<\/p>\n

Kim\u2019s victory<\/a> was part of the 2018 blue wave, in which the backlash<\/a> to repeal played a major part. Since then he has continued to talk about health care reform and developed a special interest in children\u2019s coverage\u2014very much because, he told me, he\u2019s a young father who understands what\u2019s at stake.<\/p>\n

\u201cThankfully my baby was born, we\u2019ve been able to manage his health challenges, now he\u2019s an all-star on his soccer team, and I\u2019m really proud of that,\u201d Kim said. \u201cBut ever since then, it really just stuck with me\u2014the concerns about health care for everybody, but in particular when it comes to kids, when it comes to those who are most vulnerable, those who can\u2019t look out for themselves, those that we as adults have a responsibility for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kim, a Rhodes Scholar, also made it his business to learn about policy and the history of reform\u2014leading him to propose MediKids, which, among its other virtues, is relatively simple to explain. It would automatically enroll every newborn into a new insurance program, giving parents the chance to opt out if they have alternative coverage in place. Kids could then stay on the program until they are 26 years old.<\/p>\n

Automatic enrollment, which would start two years after the law\u2019s enactment, is the crucial element. Most children are eligible for some kind of insurance already, thanks to not just the Affordable Care Act but also to expansions of Medicaid and the Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program<\/a>, a 1997 reform. But because the patchwork of existing programs can be extraordinarily difficult to understand and navigate<\/a>, kids fall through the cracks<\/a> constantly, which can mean (among other things) that they miss out on screenings, checkups, and other preventive measures that keep them healthier later in life.<\/p>\n

More children are bound to lose coverage in the future thanks to Trump and the Republicans: The \u201cOne Big Beautiful Bill<\/a>\u201d requires would-be beneficiaries to go through even more onerous enrollment processes\u2014and pushes states to question eligibility a lot more aggressively. That\u2019s one reason most analysts predict<\/a> more children are about to become uninsured<\/a>. Automatically enrolling children would prevent that kind of slippage from happening.<\/p>\n

Kim emphasized to me that he does not see MediKids as a stopping point for reform, or an alternative to any of the more sweeping proposals that would seek to insure people 26 and older. On the contrary, he said, he imagines this as a chance for Democrats to move fast and deliver benefits quickly to a politically sympathetic group before turning their attention to more ambitious changes.<\/p>\n

Critically, Kim said he believed that covering all children would create a public \u201cexpectation\u201d of universal coverage that would create support for filling in the gaps at other ages\u2014perhaps, again, through some kind of automatic enrollment.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you really going to have this type of care,\u201d Kim asked, \u201cand then all of a sudden\u2014when you\u2019re [26] years old\u2014want to give it up? I think it\u2019s going to be something that\u2019ll absolutely put us on that path for universal care.\u201d<\/p>\n

KIM IS BY NO MEANS the first politician to think of reaching universal coverage this way. Many of Medicare\u2019s original champions, back in the 1960s, envisioned gradually expanding the program to cover people at different ages until eventually it covered everybody. Democrats in Congress and running for president in the early 2000s also proposed kids-first strategies.<\/p>\n

In fact, two of them, former West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller and former California Rep. Pete Stark, actually also called their proposal<\/a> \u201cMediKids<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

A distinguishing element of Kim\u2019s proposal is that he wants to cover children through Medicaid, not Medicare. The reason is a sign that he\u2019s thought about this proposal seriously. The benefit package for basic Medicare has large out-of-pocket costs (that\u2019s why most people have some kind of supplemental coverage, or enroll in \u201cMedicare Advantage\u201d private plans, which fill in the biggest gaps).<\/p>\n

Medicaid, by design, has virtually no out-of-pocket spending and comes with a much broader set of benefits, including coverage for services like testing for lead poisoning, which is especially critical for babies and children with developing brains vulnerable to damage from such toxins. \u201cOver 23 million kids are underinsured, which means their coverage isn\u2019t meeting their needs,\u201d Kim said. \u201cThat\u2019s absolutely an abomination, in my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kim said he was also trying to be practical, by trying to expand coverage \u201cin a way that isn\u2019t trying to create some brand new agency, department, bureaucracy.\u201d But Medicaid has some well-known weaknesses, too. Among other things, it can be hard for beneficiaries to find specialists who will accept it, because it pays providers so little.<\/p>\n

Kim says boosting those payments would be an essential part of any legislation. That would add to his program\u2019s costs\u2014as would the possibility that some employers would stop offering coverage to dependents, so that the public sector would effectively be absorbing some of the health care expenses that employers now bear.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocrats will be looking for ideas that could represent additional steppingstones to universal coverage, and kids are a sympathetic group and relatively inexpensive to insure,\u201d Larry Levitt<\/a>, executive vice president at the health policy research organization KFF, told me over email. But, he noted, \u201cProviding universal coverage to a group like kids who in many cases already have private insurance raises thorny issues about what happens to the money employers are paying into the system now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kim said he hadn\u2019t gotten a Congressional Budget Office estimate yet, but said it\u2019s important to keep in mind the program\u2019s long-term benefits. \u201cI think of health care for children in particular being really an investment in this country,\u201d Kim said. \u201cHealthier kids mean healthier adults, which means a healthier workforce, which means a more productive economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Share<\/a><\/p>\n

THERE WAS A TIME, not so long ago, that insuring children was a bipartisan cause<\/a>. But it\u2019s hard to imagine many Republicans going for a plan of even modest cost, let alone one that offers coverage to undocumented immigrants, as MediKids would<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kim said he crafted his plan with that in mind, figuring it could pass through the reconciliation process\u2014in other words, with just a simple majority in the Senate, rather than the sixty votes it would take to overcome a filibuster. \u201cThis is not a messaging bill,\u201d he said. But getting all the Democrats on board could present its own challenges.<\/p>\n

In most states, private insurers<\/a> run Medicaid plans under contract, making MediKids a potentially tougher sell with progressives who are reluctant to support expansions that build on any form of private coverage. And while Kim envisions passing MediKids as a quick, targeted action, there\u2019s no guarantee it couldn\u2019t bog down a new president and Congress as much as bigger reforms might, potentially squandering the chance to do more.<\/p>\n

Those political questions are important for Democrats to consider, as are the policy and budgetary implications of MediKids. But with any real chances of enactment likely two years away, now is the perfect time for Kim to showcase his idea, and see how it holds up to scrutiny.<\/p>\n

To comment, join<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Photo illustration by Bill Kuchman\/The Bulwark | Photos: Getty, Shutterstock) ONE REASON HEALTH CARE is such a good…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":886881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-886880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=886880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/886881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}