Look, the Supreme Court ruling is a good thing, not the least of which is that it makes the heads of three wingers on the Court and across the land explode. But, it’s important to pause for a moment and realize that the Affordable Care Act is woefully inadequate, and is the dream for insurance companies and drug companies who want to leech on people.
Bernie Sanders understands that.
Here is his statement in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling:
The Supreme Court recognized the common-sense reading of the Affordable Care Act that Congress intended to help all eligible Americans obtain health insurance whether they get it through state or national exchanges. Access to affordable health care should not depend on where you live.“At a time when the United States in the only major country on earth that doesn’t guarantee health care to all Americans – and 35 million of our citizens today still lack insurance – it would have been an outrage to throw 6.4 million more people off health insurance.
“What the United States should do is join every other major nation and recognize that health care is a right of citizenship. A Medicare-for-all, single-payer system would provide better care at less cost for more Americans.”[emphasis added]
Like many Americans, I found a plan through the ACA–and that plan, beginning next year, will have increased almost 20 percent. That’s not health care. That’s legalized insurance robbery.Of course, it’s better to be covered than not.
But, people shelling out thousands of dollars a year to an immoral industry is not acceptable as a wise national policy.
And it’s stupid economics. The ACA guaranteed billions of dollars in profits for the insurance and drug industries–two of the most immoral industries in the country, and that’s saying a lot. We still waste hundreds of billions of dollars–the sweat and brow and productivity of the very workers who, then, have to shell out money to cover themselves and their families–better used for more productive economic uses.
I’m guessing Sanders is the only presidential candidate whose post-SCOTUS ruling statement calls for a single-payer system. And I’d be surprised if any other elected member of Congress thought to call for single payer (perhaps the Progressive Caucus? John Conyers?). Please correct me if I’m wrong.
Sanders has been for single-payer for years. He didn’t just discover it by driving around in a van and stopping for a quick bite at a Chipotle, and poll-testing whether the idea was sound.
He actually believes it’s the right course.
