Under "Medicare for All," everyone in the US would receive comprehensive health coverage from the government.

The idea has sparked many months of fierce debate between moderate and progressive candidates who agree on expanding insurance coverage, but disagree on the mechanism to do it.

Sanders is the frontrunner in the Democratic primary race, and polls conducted in Nevada, New Hampshire and Iowa show his signature plan gaining strong support among voters.

Though specifics are missing on how Medicare for All would likely work, we can start gauging the effects some of the proposals could have on insurers, drug companies, employers, patients, providers and hospitals.

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The main idea behind Sen. Bernie Sanders's "Medicare for All" plan is straightforward: Everyone in the US would receive comprehensive health coverage from the government.

But the reality of implementing it is far more complex, and it has sparked heated debate among Democratic presidential candidates with dueling ideological visions — since it would represent the biggest reshaping of the $3.6 trillion US healthcare system in over half a century.

Democratic candidates all agree on expanding health insurance coverage, but they disagree on how to do it. Those on the progressive left like Sens. Sanders and Elizabeth Warren envision a government-run insurance system where Americans would get coverage including dental, vision, and long-term care, and private insurers are eliminated or sidelined.

Sanders is the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination. He just won the Nevada caucus and the New Hampshire primary and scored a near-win in Iowa. Entrance polls conducted by NBC News and the Washington Post showed voters in the first three nominating states to be largely supportive of his signature proposal to reshape US healthcare.

Moderate candidates like former Vice President Joe Biden and former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg would preserve the current system. And they would create an optional government insurance plan — commonly known as the public option — and inject more federal subsidies into the state exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act.

Candidates have proposed incremental or sweeping healthcare reform plans, but Sanders' Medicare for All bill has been held up as the standard. The legislation would virtually eliminate private insurance and provide care to everyone without co-pays, deductibles, or out-of-pocket spending. Sanders would attempt to achieve it in four years.

The estimated price tag of a government-insurance system on the scale he seeks is around $34 trillion over a decade.

Warren unveiled her own plan last year that's projected to cost $20.5 trillion over ten years, and mirrors Sanders in many ways. But she has pledged to pursue a public option first and then pass Medicare for All through Congress in the third year of her presidency.

There is a lot of speculation on what would happen to all the key players in the healthcare system if a single-payer plan such as Medicare for All gets passed.

Though specifics are still missing on how Medicare for All would be fully implemented, we can start gauging the effects some of the proposals could have, based on analysis from groups including the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, conservative-leaning Mercatus Center, and Urban Institute among others.

Read on to see what Medicare for All would mean for every part of the US healthcare system: insurers, drug companies, employers, patients, providers and hospitals.

(This article was published on August 13, 2019 and has been updated.)