Senator Bernie Sanders, the former Democrat presidential candidate, launched a bid to have the US government provide "healthcare for all". Mr Sanders' attempt to overhaul the healthcare system was backed by 15 other senators including several leading contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.

His Senate bill has no chance of becoming law with Republicans in the majority in Congress.

But the level of support threatened to open a fissure in the Democratic Party, showing the extent to which it is moving increasingly to the left.

It also showed how Mr Sanders would have a strong base of support to seek the Democrat nomination himself in the race to fight President Donald Trump at the next election.

He lost the nomination in 2016 to Hillary Clinton who rejected his plans for universal healthcare as unrealistic, saying "We are not England."

Mr Sanders said: "This is where the country has got to go if we want to move away from a dysfunctional, wasteful, bureaucratic system into a rational healthcare system that guarantees coverage to everyone in a cost effective way."

He said polls showed America was moving behind him, adding: "I think in a democracy we should be doing what the American people want."