Bernie Sanders: Most Americans want universal healthcare. What are we waiting for?

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@SenSanders

Monday 14 August 2017 10.32 EDT

Excerpts:

Here is the simple truth: the function of our current healthcare system is not to provide quality, cost-effective care for all. Rather, it is to create a complicated, wasteful and bureaucratic system designed to make many hundreds of billions a year in profits for insurance companies, drug companies and medical equipment suppliers. It is a system which makes CEOs and stockholders in the healthcare industry incredibly rich, while tens of millions of Americans suffer because they are unable to get the healthcare they need.

What can we do to better serve the American people?

In the short-term, with conservative Republicans controlling the White House, and both the Senate and the House of Representatives, we should fight to pass legislation which enables people in every state to select a public option, similar to Medicare, at affordable rates. This will provide competition among expensive private insurance plans and a choice in those areas where insurance companies have fled. Further, we need to lower the Medicare eligibility to age 55. This would be a major relief for millions of older workers who, today, are unable to afford the skyrocketing premiums they are paying.

Lastly, we must take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and lower the cost of prescription drugs. There is no rational reason why pharmacists, distributors and individuals should not be able to safely import the same exact prescription drugs they use and sell today at far lower prices from Canada and other countries.

Now is the time for us to summon the courage to create a healthcare system which benefits all Americans, and not just those who make billions off of the current wasteful, bureaucratic and dysfunctional system.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/14/healthcare-a-human-right-bernie-sanders-single-payer-system