Vermont Business Magazine Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), today published two op-eds in the Boston Globe and Fox News outlining common-sense health care policies to make care more affordable and accessible for every American. This comes after congressional Republicans voted to throw 15 million people off the health care they have and double insurance premiums, on average, for 20 million Americans.
To make up for these devastating cuts, Trump and Republicans have suggested sending one-time checks to Americans as they pay out of pocket for their medical needs — checks that would be woefully insufficient to cover the real cost of care in this country.
In his Fox News op-ed titled ‘Congress just made our healthcare system worse — Here’s the fix,’ Sanders wrote: “President Trump and some Republicans in Congress have complained that the Affordable Care Act is not an efficient way to provide healthcare. They’re right. Unfortunately, what they are proposing is even worse.”
In his Boston Globe op-ed titled ‘Republicans finally want to talk about health care. That’s good — but their ideas are absurd,’ Sanders wrote: “At a time when more than 60 percent of our people live paycheck to paycheck, a $6,500 check is meaningless in the face of real medical costs. How is someone who needs a $150,000 cancer treatment going to get the care they need with a $6,500 check? What is a pregnant woman supposed to do with a $6,500 check when the average cost of childbirth in America is over $20,000? How is someone who has a heart attack going to be able to afford a $50,000 hospital stay with just $6,500? Trump’s approach would lead to more medical bankruptcies, more unaffordable care and more Americans dying unnecessarily in the richest nation on earth.”
Instead of continuing to spend over $14,500 per person on health care while more than 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, Sanders proposes policies that can reform our broken health care system in the short term and move the country toward universal coverage, including:
- Extending Affordable Care Act tax credits to help working class people afford health insurance
- Repealing massive health care cuts in Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’
- Expanding Medicare to cover dental, vision and hearing
- Cutting prescription drug costs by 50%
- Expanding primary health care
- Banning stock buybacks and dividends and restrict CEO pay
Sanders reaffirmed that the United States must break away from a dysfunctional system that allows insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry to make huge profits and that the country must provide health care to all people as a human right — joining nearly every other major nation in the world.
“At a time when the majority of Americans understand that our current health care system is broken, dysfunctional, and cruel, Congress must offer serious proposals that address systemic health care deficiencies,” Sanders continues in the Boston Globe. “Democrats should not be defending a system that is by far, the most expensive in the world, and one that numerous international studies demonstrate is one of the worst among high-income countries.”
“Guaranteeing health care as a human right is not only morally and economically necessary,” Sanders concludes in Fox News. “At a time when the overwhelming majority of Americans understand that our current system is broken, dysfunctional and cruel — the time is long overdue for us to move in a very different direction. Medicare for All is the answer.”
WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 – Sen. Bernie Sanders
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