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 insurance and drug companies is exactly what working-class Americans want, whether you are a Democrat, Republican, or Independent.
Taking on the insurance and drug companies is exactly what working-class Americans want, whether you are a Democrat, Republican, or Independent.
As I said before, we did polling, and Medicare for All, health care as a human right, cutting the cost of prescription drugs in half, expanding Social Security benefits by lifting the cap on taxable income, immediately expanding Medicare to cover dental, hearing, and vision — all of these issues are wildly popular. But in every instance, you’re taking on powerful special interests, and unfortunately, right now, given the role of big money in politics, there are far too few politicians who are prepared to stand up and say the obvious.
People understand the system is broken. You had two campaigns: the Democratic campaign saying, “Hey, the status quo is working okay, we’re going to fix a little bit around the edges.” And Trump coming in saying, “The system is completely broken and I’m going to fix it.” Well, unfortunately, he’s going to make a broken system even worse. But he won support because people know that the system is broken. It is broken. The campaign finance system is broken, the health care system is broken, the housing system is broken, the education system is broken. It is broken. And we need a movement to create a society that works for all of us, and we can do it. It ain’t easy, but that is what the struggle is about.
