Sen. Bernie Sanders was at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center in Covington for a rally Sunday evening.
A large crowd was on hand to hear Sanders, 75, urge the American people to demand that Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) not go forward with his effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Sanders (I-Vermont), was a Democratic candidate for president in 2016 and is expected to run again in 2020.
The event was streamed live on Sanders’ Facebook page.
The following comments were excerpted from the speech provided by Bernie Sanders Press:
“I am here in Covington tonight for two reasons. First, I want to talk about the so-called Republican ‘health care’ bill which, to my mind, is the worst and most dangerous piece of legislation ever seriously considered by the U.S. Senate in the modern history of our country.
Let me be as clear as I can be. The so-called ‘health care’ bill passed in the House several months ago, strongly supported by President Trump, is the most anti-working class legislation that I have ever seen and the Senate bill, also supported by Trump, in some respects is even worse. At a time when working families in Kentucky, Ohio, Vermont and throughout this country are struggling to survive, when many people are working longer hours for lower wages, when people are forced to work two or three jobs, this legislation will cause devastating harm to millions of our families from one end of this country to the other.
We are gathered here tonight to make one simple point. And that is that we will not allow 22 million Americans to be thrown off of the health insurance they currently have in order to give over $500 billion in tax breaks to the wealthiest 2 percent of this country, and to profitable drug companies, insurance companies and other large corporations. We will not support a bill which takes from the most vulnerable people in our country – the children, the elderly, the disabled, the sick and the poor – in order to make the very rich even richer. That is unconscionable, that is un-American and we will not accept it.
Plainly stated, this so-called ‘health care’ bill is nothing more than an enormous transfer of wealth from the working class of this country to the very rich. While this bill contains massive cuts to Medicaid, while seniors will pay far more in premiums, while Planned Parenthood will be defunded – the 400 highest-income taxpayers, most of whom are billionaires, will get about $33 billion in tax cuts.
At a time when the middle class in this country continues to shrink and when families in Kentucky, Ohio, Vermont and across this country are struggling to make ends meet, to put food on the table, to pay the rent, to save a few bucks for retirement we will not be part of a process which takes from working class families in order to give even more to the very rich – people who are already doing phenomenally well. This is a deeply immoral piece of legislation. That is not what America is supposed to be about.
Several months ago, as you know, with the strong support of President Trump, the House passed their disastrous health care bill. While the Senate bill is very similar, let me describe to you exactly what the House bill actually does.
At a time when 28 million Americans today have no health insurance and millions more are under-insured with high deductibles and co-payments, this bill will throw 23 million Americans off of the health insurance they currently have – including more than 230,000 right here in Kentucky. That would bring the number of uninsured in our country to over 50 million people. That is beyond comprehension. That is unconscionable. That must not be allowed to happen.
Let me also be clear in stating that no state in America has benefitted more from the Affordable Care Act than Kentucky. Since this legislation was implemented, the uninsured rate for adults in Kentucky has gone down from 20.4 percent in 2013 to just 7.8 percent in 2016 – the largest reduction in America. Today, only 4 percent of children in Kentucky are uninsured. This is a significant accomplishment, something to be very proud of, and something that should not be destroyed.
Now, despite those improvements, everyone knows that the Affordable Care Act is far from perfect. Premiums in Vermont and around the country are too high, deductibles are too high, co-payments are too high, and too many remain uninsured and under-insured. But, in each and every one of these very legitimate concerns, the Republican legislation that has brought forward would only make a bad situation much, much worse.
Our job now is to improve the Affordable Care Act, not destroy it. Our job is to lower deductibles, lower co-payments and lower the outrageously high costs of prescription drugs. Further, instead of throwing 23 million Americans off of health care, we should be fighting to join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee healthcare to all people as a right not a privilege. And, in order to accomplish that, as soon as we defeat this terrible Republican proposal, I will be introducing a Medicare-for-all, single-payer bill which will do just that.
Let me tell you what happens when you cut Medicaid by over $800 billion nationwide over a 10-year period and by $47 billion in Kentucky.
In Kentucky, Medicaid and CHIP cover 40 percent of all children, including 52 percent of children with special health care needs. In addition to standard health care services, Medicaid helps these children get special education at school, long-term care, personal assistance from nurses and attendants, and may cover technology that helps them thrive.
If Medicaid is cut, children with special health care needs could be left to fend for themselves. Nearly 75 percent of children with special health care needs live in low or middle income families. What happens to these kids and their families?
Further, it is not just the disabled kids who will suffer, it’s the whole family. If parents cannot get the help they need to take care of their kids, they might have to reduce their work hours or stop working altogether in order to stay home with their child, further driving them into poverty.
But, it’s not just children who will suffer if this bill is passed. It is the elderly. What every person in Kentucky should understand is that Medicaid now pays for over two-thirds of all nursing home care. What happens to the nearly 20,000 seniors and persons with disabilities in Kentucky who have their nursing home coverage paid for by Medicaid today?
I want to now say a word about an issue that is incredibly painful for Vermont, for our country and especially difficult for the state of Kentucky.
I know that I don’t have to tell anyone here that we have a massive and horrific opioid epidemic that is devastating communities all over this country – and that is particularly bad here in Kentucky.
Each and every day more than 90 people die in America from an opioid overdose, nearly 4,000 people begin abusing prescription painkillers, and almost 600 start using heroin.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Kentucky’s opioid drug overdose death rate is the third highest in the nation and more than twice the national average.
In 2015, over 1,300 people in Kentucky died from drug overdoses. That’s about four each and every day. That same year over 350 million opioid painkillers were distributed in this state – enough to provide every man, woman and child in Kentucky with nearly 80 pills.
In Northern Kentucky, almost five times as many lives are lost as a result of drug overdoses than car accidents. In a 2015 poll from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky, about one out of every three people in Northern Kentucky said they know someone who has a problem with heroin.
If you cut Medicaid by over $800 billion nationally over a ten year period, it will mean that up to 15,000 people in Kentucky would not get the treatment they desperately need to treat their addiction.
Further, this legislation denies 2.5 million women the health care they need by defunding Planned Parenthood. What this means is that the Planned Parenthood health centers in Lexington, Louisville and Cincinnati could be forced to close leaving over 3,200 patients without the care they desperately need. Unacceptable.
Our job today is to do everything possible to defeat this terrible legislation which will harm so many people. Our job tomorrow is to join every other major country on earth and guarantee health care for all as a right not a privilege through a Medicare-for-all, single-payer program.
And our job every day is to fight for a political revolution which demands that we create a vibrant democracy in which government represents all of us, and not just the wealthy and the powerful.
Let me conclude by saying this. A great nation is not judged by the number of billionaires it has, or by the tax breaks they receive. It is judged by its commitment to justice, dignity and equality. It is judged by how we treat the most vulnerable amongst us: the children, the sick, the elderly, the disabled and the poor.
This bill is a moral outrage. It must be defeated.”