Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed (D-Mich.) stated on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, that he would support naming a universal healthcare program after Donald Trump if the president agreed to sign such legislation. Speaking on CNN, El-Sayed proposed a "Medicare-for-all" system that would provide coverage from birth to death with no out-of-pocket costs for participants.
The proposal follows a decade of efforts by Donald Trump to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). During his first term in 2017, a repeal effort failed in the Senate. During the 2024 campaign, the president stated he had "concepts of a plan" for a replacement, and he has more recently introduced a document titled the "Great Healthcare Plan," which El-Sayed characterized as an outline rather than a detailed policy proposal.
El-Sayed, who previously made a similar offer during an interview with Zeteo, stated his primary goal is to eliminate copays, premiums, deductibles, and medical debt for all Americans. When asked by CNN's Kaitlan Collins if he was serious about the naming offer, El-Sayed affirmed he was, saying he does not care what the program is called as long as healthcare is guaranteed.
For a typical household, the concrete change would be the removal of deductibles and the risk of medical debt from their financial outlook. However, the scale of this shift involves trillions of dollars in national healthcare spending, and the source does not provide a specific timeline for when such a transition would begin or how many years it would take to implement. The impact would also extend to the private insurance market and hospital systems, which would have to adapt to a single-payer reimbursement model.
The next steps for this proposal remain uncertain as Donald Trump has not yet responded to the offer. While El-Sayed stated that Democrats are in a position to act following the recent midterm elections, any such legislation would require either presidential approval or a congressional override of a veto. No specific votes or bill introductions were scheduled at the time of El-Sayed's remarks.