Senators present health care proposals

WASHINGTON — In an animated, campaign-style rally, Sen. Bernie Sanders unwrapped his plan to remake the nation’s convoluted health care system into federally run health insurance Wednesday — a costly proposal embraced by liberal activists hoping to steer the Democratic Party in upcoming elections.

The Vermont independent’s plan would hand government a dominant role in insuring Americans, a crucial step, he said, in guaranteeing health care for all. Census Bureau data this week showed the proportion of people lacking policies falling to 8.8 percent last year under “Obamacare,” the lowest level ever recorded, but he called it an “international disgrace” that not all Americans have coverage.

Though Sanders’ plan is going nowhere in the current GOP-controlled Congress, he drew a big crowd to a packed and electrified Senate hearing room.

Hours earlier, Republican senators unveiled their own last-ditch, long-shot plan to scuttle President Barack Obama’s 2010 statute and practically begged the White House to help.

“Pick up the phone” and ask governors to support the repeal effort, said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., aiming his remarks at President Donald Trump. “Tell them this matters to you, that you weren’t kidding about repealing and replacing Obamacare, that you actually meant it.”

Shortly afterward, Trump issued a statement saying “I sincerely hope” the effort by Graham and three other GOP senators will succeed.

The waning desire of GOP lawmakers to revive their failed effort to scrap Obama’s law contrasted with growing, though wary, Democratic support for Sanders’ bill. It has attracted 16 co-sponsors, one-third of all Senate Democrats, though most are from safely Democratic states.

“Today we begin the long and difficult struggle to end the international disgrace of the United States, our great nation, being the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all,” Sanders declared.