Bernie Sanders
Early on in this campaign, I commissioned a poll. We asked the American people questions about some of the most important issues facing America, including health care, including Medicare for All. And it will not surprise you that, in fact, a strong majority of the American people understand that health care is a human right. There was very strong support for Medicare for All.
And while you have support for Medicare for All, you could turn on the television and watch it twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year, and you’ll not hear any discussion of Medicare for All. Only a handful of us — Physicians for a National Health Program, myself, and some others — are talking about it. Imagine what would happen if you had a whole political party taking on the insurance industry and the drug companies and demanding change.
But even without that megaphone, with a limited megaphone, the American people understand the current system is broken. We need to move in a very different direction. And you talk about why working-class people have abandoned the Democratic Party? That is one of the answers. If you go around saying, “The only thing I can say about health care is I will oppose cuts to the Affordable Care Act” — man! That doesn’t address the crisis we have in Vermont, where insurance costs are going up 10 to 15 percent a year. Small businesses can’t pay it.
I talked to some trade unionists just the other day, largest unions in Vermont. They tell me every time they sit down to negotiate, they can’t get a wage increase because the health care costs have gone up so much, public employees and private sector as well. So no, I do not agree with anybody who thinks that health care is not on the minds of the American people. I don’t agree with people who don’t think politically that this is a winning issue. Taking on the…
Auteur: Bernie Sanders
