On Friday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) said that the tax credits are needed to keep the Affordable Care Act affordable, the healthcare system as a whole is “a mess.” And “if it was up to me, we would have a Medicare for all system.”

McGovern said, “We need to be talking about extending the ACA tax credits so that people can afford their health insurance.”

He added, “We ought to have a larger discussion about how we fix our entire healthcare system, because it’s a mess. It’s too for-profit-oriented. But we’re not going to do that in a week or two, right? Right now, we need to extend these tax credits so that millions of people don’t see their premiums skyrocket and millions don’t lose their health insurance.”

Later, after repeating that we need tax credits to make the ACA affordable and saying the ACA is imperfect, McGovern said, “But as I said, we need to have a bigger conversation. Look, if it was up to me, we would have a Medicare for all system. When I was the chairman of the Rules Committee, we were the first committee in either the House or Senate to do a hearing on Medicare for all. And I’ll tell you, it was a very, very powerful hearing. But to fix health care holistically, is going to take some time. In the meantime, let’s extend those tax credits, let’s help people afford their health insurance.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett