South Carolina Senate Democratic nominee: ‘Medicare for All is a policy from a few decades ago’

South Carolina Senate Democratic nominee Annie Andrews on Wednesday dismissed “Medicare for All” as an outdated policy as she seeks to become the first Democrat to win a statewide race in the Palmetto State in more than 25 years.

“Medicare for All is a policy from a few decades ago,” Andrews, a physician, told host Leland Vittert on NewsNation’s “On Balance.”

She added, “I’m a pragmatic person. When you work as a physician, you have to be a problem solver. You roll up your sleeves, you solve the problem in front of you, you work with whoever you need to work with, you don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.”

Andrews is facing off against Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.), who defeated Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) in Tuesday’s GOP runoff to take the spot of her late brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), on the ballot.

As of Tuesday, Decision Desk HQ gave Darline Graham an 81 percent chance to beat Andrews in the general election. A Democrat has not won a statewide election in South Carolina since former Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.) and former Gov. Jim Hodges (D) did so in 1998.

In reliably conservative South Carolina, Andrews has campaigned as a moderate, including on healthcare.

“I believe with every cell in my body that healthcare is a human right,” she told Vittert. “But I’m also a realist, and I understand where we are politically in this country right now. We have to take pragmatic solutions to fix our healthcare system, shift it from a profit-motivated system to a patient-centered system.”

Thirty-five percent of respondents to a survey the Pew Research Center conducted last November preferred a single government-run health insurance system , while 31 percent said private companies and the government should offer insurance.

Progressive lawmakers and candidates have made Medicare for All their signature domestic policy proposal, after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) staunchly advocated for such a system during his two unsuccessful presidential campaigns.

The Medicare for All Act, introduced by Sanders and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) last year, has 17 co-sponsors in the Senate and 114 in the House .

But Andrews said Wednesday the “next step” lawmakers should take is tacking on a public option to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and halting Medicaid cuts the Trump administration made under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The Democratic nominee also argued for “reinstituting” the ACA premium subsidies that expired at the end of last year and “fully funding” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health.

“At some point, we’ll be able to have a productive bipartisan conversation about how we actually build a healthcare system that meets the needs of every American,” Andrews noted.