Instagram/@sensanders
Once again, the Vermont Senator’s blunt stay on this topic about the American healthcare system has troubled the waters. Going vitriol against the system, Sanders in his recent post stated, “broken, dysfunctional, and cruel” and then fairly stated the real meaning behind this system, “making huge fortunes for pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies.”
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This ominous message came in the form of a video that accompanied the post: “If one’s goal is to provide quality healthcare to all Americans in a cost-effective way, clearly the current healthcare system is failing. But that is not the function of the current system. The function is to make huge profits for drug companies and insurance companies. And it’s succeeding.”
Those may well be the numbers that shed the ugly, painful truth. Drug companies made a record-breaking $100 billion in profits last year by charging Americans the highest drug prices in the world. Insurance companies made $70 billion while millions were denied coverage. Sanders sarcastically said, “What’s the problem? You’ve got a successful system.”
For an almost normal Joe, though, this system is clearly failing. Sanders says, “The facts of the matter are that the U.S. spends $14,500 per person on health care, more than any other country, while 85 million remain without insurance. How is it that other countries provide quality care to all people at half the cost?” To him, the answer is really easy: in any other developed nation, healthcare is a right, not a commodity.
The post had hit the nerve and saw much reaction. One user said Sanders is “America’s finest leader”; while another said: “Insurance and drug companies keep us alive just enough to profit off our suffering.” The heartbreaking ones came from a woman whose mother lost Medicare coverage and can’t afford her blood thinner at $1,695. “She’s out of medicine, and I don’t know what to do,” she said.
Many said these so-called radical ideas advocated by Sanders forage are the norm in most of the developed world. One user declared, “It’s not radical. It’s normal in European and even Asian countries.” Another said, “Setting limits on corporate greed isn’t socialism—it’s common sense.”
But those aren’t statements voiced from every corner. Others remarked that Sanders is “too good to be president,” while at least one alleged he couldn’t lead due to his age. Sanders’ defenders wouldn’t have had any of this: “He’s way more lucid than Trump or Biden,” came one retort.
The menacing talk crept lower as one user approved an alleged assassination of an insurance CEO, saying these corporations were “not really human.” While not claiming to be sane, the words give voice to intensified cathartic frustration felt on both sides of the industry by those who believe profits come before lives.
He has been representing the furthest version possible of Medicare for All for a really long time, and all that was just a commentary of how badly we need to take apart and reconstruct the profit-oriented healthcare system in this country. Whether his proposals even result in any real change is another matter; however, what is globbing together is a stubborn base that refuses to back down. One frightened user said, “Bernie will go to his grave fighting for the common person.”
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Hence the debate is now continuing, with Sanders keeping his sights firmly set on a healthcare system where care is a right provided to people instead of being granted to those who can pay for it. Sanders advocates that care should be universally accessible.