Janelle Bynum

U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum, who is facing her first reelection campaign for Congress this November, is tapping into public support for improved health insurance by touting a federal single-payer healthcare proposal that’s backed by more than 100 fellow Democrats in Congress, including every Democratic member of Oregon’s delegation.

At a press conference Monday at downtown Portland’s waterfront, Bynum called universal healthcare “a human right.” The 5th Congressional District representative became a co-sponsor of the Medicare for All Act in mid-September.

“I’ve heard about people who did everything right, people who worked hard and paid their premiums and took care of their families but still couldn’t get the healthcare they needed. People whose premiums have skyrocketed. People who lost their coverage entirely,” she recounted. “You should not have to choose between your human right and a roof over your head.”

Her support of the bill comes as Oregon prepares to consider its own universal healthcare plan, with a state board expected to deliver recommendations for a publicly funded system to lawmakers by Dec. 1.

And with hopes of regaining control of Congress, Democrats have made expanding health coverage a central goal, including increasing Affordable Care Act subsidies, reversing Medicaid cuts and lowering the Medicare eligibility age.

Bynum is running for reelection in the district she flipped in 2024 by just 2.7 points. The Cook Political Report lists the race as a “solid D” though Bynum is the only Oregon lawmaker on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s vulnerable-incumbent list.

The Medicare for All Act is a long-running single-payer healthcare proposal that has circulated in Congress for more than two decades but has never come close to becoming law. Its current version is championed by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., in the House and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the Senate. It has 117 Democratic cosponsors in the House and 17 in the Senate. Rep. Cliff Bentz is the only lawmaker in Oregon’s Congressional delegation who is not a co-sponsor of the legislation.

Bynum — whose district spans Portland suburbs, Clackamas County and the Bend area and includes a mix of small towns and rural communities — framed healthcare as an issue of personal freedom, saying high medical costs limit people’s ability to change jobs, start businesses or care for family members.

She said more than 28,000 people in her district will see insurance costs rise and an additional 25,000 could lose coverage entirely as a result of federal changes in President Donald Trump’s the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — which slashed federal healthcare spending by more than $1 trillion — and Affordable Care Act subsidies expiring.

And she took a jab at the healthcare corporations that are likely to oppose universal healthcare in Oregon and nationwide.

“Look at the skyline, you see the names of enormous healthcare and insurance companies. But the people living under that skyline, they’re struggling to afford healthcare and housing and trying to figure out which bill gets paid this month,” she said. “There’s something fundamentally wrong with a system where the institutions who control access to healthcare can thrive while the people who actually need the healthcare are scared to use it.”

Universal government-backed healthcare is common across much of the developed world, including in many European countries as well as in Canada, Australia and Japan.