For many years, a handful of American political leaders have been trying to gain passage of comprehensive health care for all Americans. As far back as President Truman, they have urged Congress to act on this national need. In a presentation before a joint session of Congress last week, President Obama offered his view of the best way forward.

But what seems missing in the current battle is a single proposal that everyone can understand and that does not lend itself to demagoguery. If we want comprehensive health care for all our citizens, we can achieve it with a single sentence: Congress hereby extends Medicare to all Americans.

Those of us over 65 have been enjoying this program for years. I go to the doctor or hospital of my choice, and my taxes pay all the bills. It’s wonderful. But I would have appreciated it even more if my wife and children and I had had such health-care coverage when we were younger. I want every American, from birth to death, to get the kind of health care I now receive. Removing the payments now going to the insurance corporations would considerably offset the tax increase necessary to cover all Americans.

We know that Medicare has worked well for half a century for those of us over 65. Why does it become “socialized medicine” when we extend it to younger Americans?

We recently bailed out the finance houses and banks to the tune of $700 billion. A country that can afford such an outlay while paying for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan can afford to do what every other advanced democracy has done: underwrite quality health care for all its citizens.

If Medicare needs a few modifications in order to serve all Americans, we can make such adjustments now or later. But let’s make sure Congress has an up-or-down vote on Medicare for all before it adjourns this year. Let’s not waste time trying to reinvent the wheel. We all know what Medicare is. Do we want health care for all or only for those over 65?

If the roll is called and it goes against those of us who favor national health care, so be it. If it is approved, the entire nation can applaud.

Many people familiar with politics in America will tell you that this idea can’t pass Congress, in part because the insurance lobby is too powerful for lawmakers to resist.

As matters now stand, the insurance companies claim $450 billion a year of our health-care money. They will fight hard to hold on to this bonanza. This is a major reason Americans pay more for health care per capita than any other people in the world.

A March 2008 study by Indiana University — the largest survey ever of doctors’ opinions on financing health-care reform — concluded that 59 percent of doctors support national health insurance.

To have the doctors with us favoring government health insurance is good news. As Obama said: “We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it.”

George S. McGovern, a former senator from South Dakota, was the Democratic nominee for president in 1972. A version of this commentary originally appeared in the Washington Post.