BNB Note:
While politics is often analyzed from the outside, BNB’s Guest Editorial Series aims to flip that perspective by highlighting the firsthand experiences of those working inside the political and policy arena. This includes lawmakers crafting and ushering legislation, candidates navigating the campaign trail, career civil servants implementing public programs, and political operatives shaping strategy behind the scenes.
The goal is not to litigate every claim or endorse every position, but to provide readers with direct insight into how decisions are made, how institutions function, and how power operates in practice.
Below, is a guest editorial from former State Senator Matt Little. Little is running in the DFL primary to represent Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District.
For far too long, health insurance companies and executives have placed their desire for profit over the well-being of patients. The healthcare cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act only made our healthcare situation more dire. Minnesota’s uninsured rate climbed to the highest it’s been since 2017. Minnesotans know our healthcare system is in crisis, but politicians who would rather tinker around the edges have tried to convince voters that Medicare for All isn’t worth the fight. They are wrong.
America has the best medical care in the world–if you can afford it, but far too many Minnesotans can’t. I know this struggle personally. My mom has been sick for most of my life, and I’ve grown up seeing firsthand how you can do everything right, but still be one accident or illness away from financial ruin.
We are the only developed nation on Earth without universal healthcare, yet we pay the most out of any country for a broken system. Medicare administrative expenses as a percentage of total costs are around 2%, but private insurance spends close to 20% of revenue on administrative expenses. This represents billions of dollars that are not being spent on healthcare. Medicare for all would use an existing system, save $600-800 billion dollars according to a GAO study, and lower costs for everyone. The money we save with Medicare for All can be reinvested to lower costs and improve care.
People shouldn’t be forced to choose between eating, paying rent or affording life-saving medication in the richest nation on Earth.
I’ve heard health insurance executives and lobbyists say that Medicare for All is too bold or too progressive, and that a public option is the more pragmatic choice. I’ve also heard politicians claim that health insurance companies will make passing Medicare for All impossible by pouring millions against it, so we need to do what we can in the meantime and pass a public option, but that isn’t true. Healthcare companies will fight tooth and nail to stop any changes to the healthcare system, regardless of how it’s done–so why should we negotiate against ourselves for another bandaid policy that will fail again?
Public option could make universal healthcare harder to attain-not easier. Health insurance companies will push the most at-risk and poorest patients onto the public option, in an attempt to make it fail. Rates and premiums will skyrocket. The opponents
of universal healthcare would do this in hopes that any fundamental changes would appear impossible, making universal healthcare seem like a hopeless endeavor.
The only real way for us to make sure all Americans get the healthcare they deserve without spending their life savings in the process is to pass Medicare for All. Every other developed nation has it, and pays less than us. It’s time we stop letting corrupt CEO’s and insurance lobbyists coerce us into fifty more years of failed incremental patchwork fixes. It’s time we stopped tinkering around the edges and started implementing a system that will lower costs for all of us.
Despite what insurance companies and corporate-aligned super PACS want you to believe, this problem can be solved if we have the will to fight for it.
If I’m elected to Congress, I will fight tirelessly to pass Medicare for All, so all Americans can get high-quality and affordable healthcare.