After a poll revealed that Americans have little faith in the U.S.’s health care system, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), took to the Senate floor Tuesday to call for Medicare for All.
“While it is not discussed much in the corporate media or here in the halls of Congress, we have, today, in the United States, the most inefficient, bureaucratic, and expensive health care system in the world,” Sanders said. “And that’s not just what I believe. That is what the American people know to be true because of their lived experience.”
The lawmaker was cited A recent Associated Press/NORCOn Monday, a poll showed that over 80 percent Americans are at least somewhat concerned about the accessibility of health care when they require it. Sanders highlighted the following findings only 12 percent of Americans think health care is handled “very” or “extremely” well in the U.S., that only 6 percent believe prescription drug costs are handled that way and that opinions about the quality of mental health care are similarly low at just 5 percent.
The largely private health care system, he said, makes the U.S. an “international embarrassment” when you take into account the fact that every other wealthy countryThe world has universal healthcare.
Sanders said that the poll indicates that Americans are strongly in favor of Medicare for All and some form guaranteed health care. About 66% of respondentsWhile 86% of respondents believe that the federal government should ensure that all Americans have insurance, only 12% feel that Medicare should cover hearing, vision, and dental care.
Despite being the wealthiest country in history, he said, the U.S. still sees thousands of deaths and unnecessary suffering due to the country’s inequitable health care system.
Nevertheless, the life expectancy for the wealthy is much longer than that of the average person. the average American, he pointed out – partly because health care costs are simply unaffordable to millions of AmericansPatients who have to take out medical loans or postpone getting prescriptions filled, or visit a doctor because of the associated cost.
“Sickness should not be a cause of financial ruin,” Sanders said.
He added that even if people are trying to find health care, it can be difficult for them to find one, due to the scarcity of providers. doctors, dental hygienists, nurses, and other critical health care workers. On the other hand, however, there are “more than enough people,” Sanders said, to send bills to people and hound them over money owed.
Sanders claims that the causes of these inefficiencies and inequities are due to the greed of the pharmaceutical and insurance companies. Profits of Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson jumped more than 90% to over $54 Billion last year.
“If you want to know why we are stuck with a dysfunctional health care system that fails the American people but that makes the drug companies and the insurance companies wildly profitable, follow the money,” he said, pointing out that the private health care sector has spent over $10 billion in lobbying since 1998, including over $1.7 billion on campaign contributions.
The progressive from Vermont concluded his advocacy for the passage of his Medicare For All bill. Most recently, introduced last May. If passed, it will establish a single-payer system for health care that would guarantee coverage for all Americans in every clinic and facility.
“Maybe, just maybe, now is the time for Congress to do what the American people want, not what the lobbyists want, not what the drug companies want, not what the insurance companies want. And maybe, just maybe, we should have the courage to take on powerful special interests who dominate health care in the United States,” Sanders concluded. “And maybe, just maybe, now is the time to provide health care to every man, woman and child as a human right by passing a Medicare for All single payer program.”
