Medicare for all – why supporters can’t agree what it should mean

American ideas about what universal health coverage should look like aren’t exactly universal. Between the dickering over “single payer” versus “public option” models lies a deeper debate about how Americans value health care.

When the House Rules Committee recently took up a controversial topic – shifting U.S. health care onto the shoulders of government as a “single payer” – the voice of one witness seemed loudest precisely because he had none. Due to illness, activist Ady Barkan was unable to speak to the committee. Instead his typed responses, delivered to...