Rivet Suggests Opening Up Medicare For Those Who Want It

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 11/19/2025) U.S. Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Bay City) described the United States' health care system as being in a “crisis" that, in the long term, should include affordable insurance programs, which “likely means . . . a reasonable proposal that opens up Medicare for people who want it."

Speaking Wednesday during a press conference sponsored by Protect Our Care, Rivet advocated for a return of the Affordable Care Act tax credits that have kept health insurance rates steady and affordable for Americans. Without the tax credits, “millions of Americans” are at risk of going without health insurance, which will jack up rates for everyone else.

Rivet mentioned a small business owner who is opting to drop health insurance altogether and purchase only health care for her daughter because the One Big Beautiful Bill eliminated the credits, which made their medical coverage affordable.

“It's heartbreaking,” she said, adding that Republicans in Washington D.C. are ignoring the problem by not bringing to the House floor legislation to address the situation.

“This is an emergency,” Rivet said. "It's something that has to be dealt with right now, and that's why we're talking about the ACA tax credits, but it certainly isn't an indication that doing that and putting those tax credits back in place as a safety net for millions of Americans is going to fix our health care system." There's so much work that we have to do, she added.

“Medicaid is a system that is bureaucratic and too burdensome and needs some reform. Heck, these tax credits need some reform, but we can't decide that we're just going to cut trillions of dollars from these programs without anything to replace it with.”

Bringing down the cost of prescription drugs to a place where people can afford them is a start, she said, but so is making preventative care and general health care reasonably priced through affordable insurance programs.

“That likely means that we have to put a reasonable proposal on the table that opens up Medicare for people who want it,” she said.