"Everything in Medicare for All is an ideal we should be working for and hopefully obtaining incrementally," Dr. Maurus said. "Obviously with the current Congress, nothing is going to happen before 2018 at the earliest."

"It's morally and financially responsible," he said. "It has the potential to reduce cost and complexity."

Rep. Kurth said the United States lags behind every other developed country in providing health care.

"In fact, every developed country in the world has a program of health care which they provide for their citizens, and I'm thinking that we consider ourselves so very, very fortunate to be living in the US of A, and yet health care is one of our needs that has not been taken care of," she said.

"And I think it's time that we step up. To me, the importance of government, what government is, is to help lift people up. Health care is one of the issues that needs to be protected by our government."

Mr. Babcock said that not providing access to health care has deep costs.