Sanders launches healthcare bill that could propel him to White House nomination
SENATOR Bernie Sanders, the former Democrat presidential candidate, yesterday launched an attempt in the Senate to have the US government provide “healthcare for all”.
Mr Sanders’ attempt to overhaul the healthcare system was backed by 15 other senators, including several leading contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. His bill has no chance of becoming law with Republicans in the majority in Congress, but the level of support threatened to open a fissure in the Democratic Party, showing the extent to which it is moving increasingly to the left.
It also showed how Mr Sanders would have a strong base of support to seek the Democrat nomination himself in the race to fight Donald Trump at the next election. He lost the nomination in 2016 to Hillary Clinton who rejected his plans for universal healthcare as unrealistic, saying: “We are not England.”
Mr Sanders said: “This is where the country has got to go if we want to move away from a dysfunctional, wasteful, bureaucratic system into a ra- tional healthcare system that guarantees coverage to everyone in a cost-effective way.”
He said polls showed America was moving behind him, adding: “I think in a democracy we should be doing what the American people want.” Mr Sanders’ plan would expand Medicare, the government programme which covers the elderly, to everyone.
His “Medicare for All” bill would mean Americans no longer having to pay out-of-pocket charges when visiting doctors and hospitals. Instead, they would get health cover by showing a new government-issued card.
The bill omitted specifics about how much the scheme would cost. Aides to Mr Sanders said it would be funded by people paying monthly premiums to the government instead of to insurance companies. Those premiums would range from zero for the poorest to high levies on the rich and on corporations.
President Barack Obama’s “Obamacare” programme helped more than 20 million people obtain health insurance who previously could not afford it. Mr Trump wants to repeal and replace Obamacare, saying it represented overreach by the government.