Sen. Sanders wants to talk healthcare reform with President Trump
Friday afternoon President Donald Trump had just seen his own party let him down on the repealing and the replacing of Obamacare, he reflected that he felt that in the end there would be bi-partisan support for real healthcare reform. Well it seems that Sen. Bernie Sanders wants to work with President Trump on a crafting a bi-partisan real meaningful healthcare bill.
After having a massive town hall meeting on Saturday night Sen. Sanders said Sunday he planned to introduce a single-payer health care plan to Congress, inviting both President Trump and Republican leaders to negotiate the measure.
The Vermont senator said Sunday that he was willing to work with both Democrats and Republicans to provide “insurance for all,” two days after the GOP leadership’s American Health Care Act was pulled from the House floor to avoid a legislative defeat. Sanders’ support for a single-payer system was a centerpiece of his unsuccessful run for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“I’m going to introduce a Medicare-for-all single-payer program,” Sanders told anchor Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union.” The Vermont senator, who has repeatedly stated his support for such a plan in the past, said he hoped to garner bipartisan support for his bill.
Sen. Sanders was the other “outsider candidate,” in the 2016 presidential field and a number of his voters in the end supported Trump over Hillary Clinton.
The former Democratic presidential candidate said such a plan could help to deliver on President Trump’s pursuit of lowering prescription drug prices, adding that he’d look to work with the White House on the legislation.
“President Trump, come on board. Let’s work together,” Sanders said. “Let’s end the absurdity of Americans paying by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.”
“Let us do, among other things, a public option. Let us give people in every state in this country a public option from which they can choose. Let’s talk about lowering the age of Medicare eligibility from 65 to 55. Let’s deal with the greed of the pharmaceutical industry,” he said on CNN.
The senator acknowledged that such a bill would face political difficulties—Democrats didn’t endorse single-payer even when they had a Congressional majority—but said such a streamlined system would address healthcare problems felt on both sides of the political aisle.
“Obamacare has serious problems. Deductibles are too high. Premiums are too high. The cost of health care is going up at a much faster rate than it should,” he said. “Those are areas that we can work together on.”
Trump is a fan of the single payer system and also agrees with Sen. Sanders on reducing the cost of prescription drugs. While, there are many things the two outsiders disagree on, having the duo talking about the issue might the first step on getting comprehensive healthcare in the United States, something both men want.
Video from CNN
