Bernie Sanders is pushing hard for single-payer health care.
In order to move closer to that goal, Sanders and other people on the left are decrying the GOP health care bill in the strongest terms possible.
But Sanders crossed the line when he invoked 9/11 to push his narrative.
Sanders said the GOP health care bill would kill more people than the September 11th terrorist attack.
From Townhall.com:
On Sunday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) held a rally against the GOP health care bill in Morgantown, West Virginia, where the self-described democratic socialist said that the proposed bill would be worse than the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“Now obviously nobody can predict exactly how many people will die if they lose their coverage. Nobody can make that prediction, but what experts at the Harvard School of Public Health estimate, is that if 23 million Americans were to be thrown off the insurance they currently have, which is what the House [GOP] bill would do, up to 28,000 Americans every single year could die. That is nine times more than the tragic losses of we suffered on 9/11, every single year.”
There are plenty of areas to criticize the GOP health care bill. Democrats can certainly mention 23 million fewer Americans having insurance, while conservatives can slam the tepid reduction in Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, which enrolled able-bodied Americans into the program. Medicaid was meant for low-income families and disabled citizens.
At the same time, throwing in that a piece of legislation would be akin to suffering a terror attack is grossly hyperbolic and unseemly. There is a difference between policy impact and that of a fully fueled 747 crashing into a building and killing thousands. It’s a gross overreach in health scare tactics, though we all know that Sanders is just waiting for this bill to fail, so he could put forward his single payer bill. Ironic, since the issue of wait times could lead to and have been responsible for deaths for those in a single payer system. Just look at the scandal that’s engulfed Veterans Affairs.
The scare tactics from the left are wildly overblown. Half of the “23 million” are simply people who would opt to pay out-of-pocket for health care (Obamacare mandated people buy it).
Also, many of the people who became insured under Obamacare were a result of Medicaid expansion, which has proven not to lead to better health outcomes.
Leftists like Sanders pretend health care pre-2010 was some type of butcher shop.
Bernie Sanders loves to throw around the word “free.”
Free health care. Free college. But like any good socialist, the only “free” Bernie doesn’t like is free choice.
A single-payer system (like Canada’s) would give bureaucrats the power to determine if and when citizens get treatment.
From National Review:
When it comes to the final metric, quality of care, Canada lags behind most other developed Western nations. A 2014 report by the Commonwealth Fund ranked Canada tenth out of eleven wealthy countries…in health-care quality, and dead last in timeliness of care.
The report showed that 29 percent of adult Canadians who fell ill and needed to see a specialist waited two months or longer, and 18 percent waited four months or longer, compared with 6 percent and 7 percent of Americans, respectively.
Canada’s quality of care is poor, and it continues to deteriorate in the face of a looming fiscal crunch and further rationing. In Canada’s single-payer system, citizens cannot pay directly for procedures, and they cannot purchase private insurance to cover services provided by the CHA. They must instead wait in line or seek health-care services outside the country.
The harrowing case of theBritish infant Charlie Gard illustrates the horrors of nationalized health care; the British NHS denied Charlie’s parents the right to fly him to America for an experimental treatment that could potentially save his life.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
People should remember that every time Bernie Sanders opens his mouth, promising the world.