Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is happy the American Health Care Act (AHCA) failed to make its way through Congress, but admits Obamacare isn’t a perfect system.
President Donald Trump and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan announced Friday that they were pulling the bill just hours before it was scheduled to go up for a vote on the House floor. The announcement marked a decisive end to a contentious, but otherwise action-packed week on Capitol Hill, which tested both the new administration and Republican leadership’s ability to drive major legislation through Congress. (RELATED: Spicer: Trump Is ‘Disappointed’ But The ‘Agenda Moves On’)
Sanders appeared on CNN’s “Face The Nation” Sunday to discuss what comes next for health care reform.
The senator believes the ACHA’s failure is a blessing for consumers.
“The bill that was defeated should have been defeated,” Sanders said. “It was a disastrous piece of legislation primarily designed to provide $300 billion in tax breaks to the top 2 percent, throwing 24 million people off of health insurance, raising premiums for older workers in a very, very significant way.”
Sanders admits, however, that the current system is not without its flaws. “Of course, Obamacare has serious problems,” Sanders said. “Deductibles are too high. Premiums are too high. The cost of health care is going up at a much faster rate than it should.”
To fix the problems of Obamacare, Sanders thinks lawmakers need to look at other industrialized nations that have socialist models of health care. “Ideally, what — where we should be going is to join the rest of the industrialized the world and guarantee health care to all people as a right,” Sanders said.
Trump is now reportedly focusing on tax reform and pursuing his pro-growth “America First” economic agenda. The president is saying he will let Obamacare continue to implode, in hopes of bringing wayward Republicans and hard-line Democrats to the negotiating table when things get too bad.
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