Pelosi says that while she has long supported the idea the bill captures, "Right now I'm protecting the Affordable Care Act." | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo Pelosi not endorsing Sanders' single-payer bill

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declined to back a single-payer health care bill drafted by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) , saying she is instead focused on efforts to shield Obamacare from Republican attempts to rescind it.

“Right now, I’m protecting the Affordable Care Act,” Pelosi told a small group of reporters in her Capitol office Tuesday. “None of these other things … can really prevail unless we have the Affordable Care Act.”


The House’s top Democrat said she would review the legislation, which Sanders is rolling out to much fanfare on Wednesday.

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The single-payer bill has quickly attracted support from a flock of Democratic senators in the mix for the 2020 presidential race, suggesting that it is rapidly becoming a litmus test among the liberal grass roots.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kamala Harris of California and Jeff Merkley of Oregon have all said they will co-sponsor the legislation. But the popularity of Sanders’ bill is quickly spreading to other senators not necessarily eyeing a presidential run, including Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii.

But Pelosi disputed the notion that backing single-payer — a policy move enthusiastically embraced by the liberal grassroots yet politically unfeasible in the short term — was becoming a litmus test among the left.

“I don’t think it’s a litmus test,” Pelosi told reporters. “I think to support the idea that .. it captures is that we want to have everybody, as many people as possible, everybody, covered. And I think that is something that we all embrace.”