Urrutia Claims Medicare-For-All Mantle, Hits 'Status Quo' Shaheen, Sullivan

By Michael Graham, NH Journal

“I am a Medicare For All candidate. I support it. I will fight for it. Maura Sullivan and Stefany Shaheen don’t support it and won’t fight for it.”

That’s Democratic congressional candidate Christian Urrutia’s message to NH-01 primary voters, and he hopes it’s enough to give him the edge in the crowded field for the Sept. 8 contest.

At a press conference in Manchester Tuesday, Urrutia — an attorney and New Hampshire Army National Guard officer — said Medicare For All is an issue of public policy and morality.

“In the richest country on earth, are we prepared to deny lifesaving health care to people because they can’t afford it? Are we prepared to allow people to go bankrupt because they got sick?” Urrutia asked.

“I agree with Bernie Sanders. We need to fight for Medicare for All.”

Urrutia called out the two top-polling candidates in the race, Shaheen and Sullivan, over what he claims is their lack of support for a single-payer health care system.

Sullivan supports “Medicare for All Who Want It,” a public option that would allow Americans to choose a government-sponsored health plan while preserving private insurance.

“That’s just consultant-speak for ‘Not Medicare for All,’” Urrutia said. He argued Sullivan’s approach would leave older and less healthy Americans in the government plan while younger and healthier people remained privately insured, weakening the public program’s finances.

And Shaheen?

“I spent a year on the campaign trail with Stefany Shaheen. I still don’t know her health care position,” Urrutia said. “Her answers have been a word salad.”

In the past, Shaheen has avoided giving direct answers to questions about her health care policy.

When NHJournal asked her in June, for example, whether she supports a single-payer health care system, Shaheen appeared to reject it.

“I support every option we need to fix this broken health care system, but that (single payer) is not where we — we know we have to deliver change today with meaningful measures that happen today. We can’t wait for rebuilding the system to deliver relief for people,” Shaheen said.

She also gave The Dartmouth a less-than-definitive answer when a reporter with the paper asked her the same question.

“Every option should be on the table, including a public option, but we can’t wait for comprehensive reform to start lowering costs.”

Shaheen’s tone has suddenly — and dramatically — shifted.

“I’m with Bernie Sanders and support Medicare for All. We need a public option in this country, which means keeping every option on the table to deliver necessary change,” Shaheen posted on her campaign website.

For Urrutia, the “public option” language is a political loophole.

“Maura and Stefany are a continuation of the status quo. They just don’t want anyone to know about it. I am for transformative change in our country.”

Urrutia, however, had his own lack of clarity regarding how he proposed paying for a universal, government-run health care system.

When reporters repeatedly asked how he would cover the roughly $3 trillion-a-year price tag, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, Urrutia acknowledged that employers and workers would pay new taxes without saying how large those taxes would be or how the burden would be divided.

“There would be some tax, obviously, that comes into the employer side and the employee side,” Urrutia said. He argued those taxes would replace insurance premiums and other health care costs that families and businesses already pay, resulting in net savings.

Under Medicare for All math, the money currently paid by employers, employees, and the self-insured would stop going to private health insurance companies and instead go to the federal government. But with trust in the government and its ability to solve problems near an all-time low, why should voters trust Washington, D.C., to oversee something as complex as health care?

Urrutia responded with a question of his own.

“Do you trust UnitedHealthcare to make sure that you get the best care possible? It doesn’t work.”

He recounted suffering a stroke in his 30s. Doctors eventually discovered and repaired a hole in his heart, he said, but the experience left him and his wife worried not only about his recovery but also about whether they could afford the treatment.

“It took me six months of basically litigation to get the coverage I needed,” Urrutia said. “We’ve all been through the denials and the denials and the denials, only for it to get approved the seventh time. So I have to say, our current system is not efficient at all.”

Urrutia did not reference the other Democrats in the race — Carleigh Beriont, Sarah Chadzynski and Rep. Heath Howard.

Both Beriont and Howard support Medicare for All, while Chadzynski’s position is more nuanced.

“I would sign on to single-payer system legislation, but we need relief now,” she told NHJournal.

“The federal government needs to take over re-risk insurance, which would immediately lower our monthly premiums, and we need to move our entire health care system to a nonprofit model.”

While Americans tell pollsters they believe the nation’s health care system needs reform, the vast majority say they’re happy with their own health insurance.

A January 2026 Searchlight Institute/Tavern Research poll found 76 percent were satisfied with their current health insurance, including 33 percent who were “very satisfied.

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.