{"id":14939,"date":"2026-08-06T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=14939"},"modified":"2026-08-06T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T09:00:00","slug":"watch-democratic-senator-proposes-a-fix-for-american-healthcare-covering-all-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=14939","title":{"rendered":"Watch: Democratic Senator Proposes a Fix for American Healthcare \u2014 Covering All Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this \u201cHow Would You Fix It?\u201d interview, Julie Rovner, KFF Health News\u2019 chief Washington correspondent and host of the What the Health?<\/em> podcast, sat down with Sen. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat, to discuss his proposal to grant all kids access to health coverage.<\/p>\n

Kim, who serves on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said it is \u201ca real dereliction of our duty that we have not found a way to be able to ensure that every child is able to go see a doctor when they need to without breaking the bank.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the senator\u2019s proposal, children would be automatically enrolled at birth in the public program, which he has dubbed MediKids<\/a>. Parents would have the option to opt their kids out, though they could reenroll them at any time until age 26, Kim told Rovner.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to make sure that all of these kids are able to get the care that they need as their bodies are and their brains are developing and that you don\u2019t see the kind of withdrawal of or restriction of care that could have real consequences down the road,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kim said offering comprehensive, universal coverage to American children would help them avoid chronic conditions in adulthood, in addition to providing broader societal benefits, such as a healthier workforce.<\/p>\n

He added that he hopes his idea could gain traction should Democrats claim a majority in Congress in the midterm elections, as well as foster an important discussion about healthcare in the 2028 presidential race.<\/p>\n

KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article<\/a> first appeared on KFF Health News<\/a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this \u201cHow Would You Fix It?\u201d interview, Julie Rovner, KFF Health News\u2019 chief Washington correspondent and host of the What the Health? podcast, sat down with Sen. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat, to discuss his proposal to grant all kids access to health coverage. Kim, who serves on the Senate Health, Education, Labor…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":14940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14939"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}