Gov. Gavin Newsom has long touted a single-payer health system, and campaigned on it during his successful gubernatorial run.

On Tuesday, he announced a step toward exploring a single-payer financing model and other policies that could get Californians closer to universal health coverage.

Newsom announced the formation of the Healthy California For All Commission, a 17-person body that will begin meeting in January to look into ways to expand health coverage, including, but not limited to, a single-payer model. Members include the head of the Department of Health Care Services, which administers Medi-Cal, the chairmen of health committees in the state Senate and Assembly, the executive director of the health insurance exchange Covered California, as well as academics and health advocates.

Newsom said the commission will look into national health insurance programs in other countries, including Canada and Germany, and consider what might work in California.

“We’ll be exploring in our commission the hybrids in the rest of the world and consider tenets that may work in California,” Newsom said during a call with reporters and Covered California executive director Peter Lee to discuss Covered California open enrollment. “All in the backdrop of reality.”

To enact a single-payer system, California would need federal approval on various components, even if the Legislature were to approve it — and that is all but guaranteed to be rejected by a Republican White House. The state has already enacted changes that take effect in 2020 that didn’t need federal approval — such as new financial assistance for middle-income Californians to pay for health care premiums and expanding the Medi-Cal insurance program for the poor to cover undocumented residents up to age 26.

The commission “allows the governor to explore what direction to take the health care system in for California to potentially get ready for a Democrat in the White House in 2021, which could give the state more leeway,” said Larry Levitt, a health policy analyst at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

“The governor was very outspoken in his support for single-payer health care in the campaign and has not moved the debate forward during his time in office yet,” Levitt said. “This commission may be a way to buy him some time — the political equivalent of ‘the check’s in the mail.’”

The Legislature in 2017 considered a bill that would have created a single-payer system with a price tag of roughly $400 billion a year, but it was widely criticized by many policy experts because it did not include a detailed financing plan. Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood (Los Angeles County), shelved the bill, calling it “woefully incomplete.”

Catherine Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Cat_Ho