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PLAINS TWP. — Chants of “Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!” could be heard echoing through the halls of Mohegan Sun Pocono on Monday, where hundreds of members of a nursing union gathered to hear the ideas of a presidential candidate who has made health care a consistent part of his platform.
Senator Bernie Sanders, D-Vermont, was a guest speaker at a conference held by the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, or PASNAP.
Sanders, who is more often registered as an Independent than as a Democrat, is one of the major players in an ever-growing list of Democratic contenders hoping to unseat President Donald Trump in next year’s presidential election.
The senator currently is in the midst of a whirlwind campaign tour, appearing in Wisconsin, Ohio and Pittsburgh in the past few days, before making stops in the Wilkes-Barre area and Bethlehem later on Monday.
Speaking to a room full of nurses and other healthcare professionals, Sanders focused his talk on Monday to healthcare, namely his plan to introduce legislation for “Medicare for All,” a keynote issue for Sanders in both this election and his run for the Democratic nomination in 2016.
Sanders opened his comments with a thanks for the work nurses do in the nation’s healthcare system.
“There is no profession in healthcare more important than nursing,” Sanders said to exuberant applause from the nursing audience.
“You’re there at the beginning; you’re there at the end; and you’re there at every day for everybody in between,” Sanders continued.
But Sanders said there are major overhauls of the nation’s healthcare system that are necessary to fix a system that he calls “dysfunctional.”
Sanders said, as president, he would fight for things that would make the hard work of healthcare easier for the healthcare providers.
“You need a limit to what you can effectively do, or you can’t do your job right,” Sanders said, explaining the importance of proper staffing for nurses.
Sanders quickly shifted focus to insurance, saying that it is simply “unacceptable” that millions of Americans don’t have the insurance necessary to survive without going bankrupt in the event of a medical emergency.
“You should be entitled to all the healthcare you need,” Sanders exclaimed.
The senator thinks the solution to what he described as a crisis in healthcare is to extend the benefits of Medicare to all citizens.
Sanders suggested his critics, particularly those in the GOP, would claim that this system would be too expensive, but Sanders claimed it would truly be cheaper than the current system, saying the U.S. currently spends twice as much on healthcare as countries with a system similar to the proposed Medicare for All.
The senator’s efforts to enact Medicare for All are proving popular, with some polls suggesting a majority of Americans support it, and Sanders suggests that popularity comes from unions like PASNAP pushing for it.
“Keep up the good work,” Sanders said to them before leaving the stage.
GOP Response
After Sanders’ trio of appearances in Pennsylvania over the past few days, Val DiGiorgio, chairman of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, said on a conference call that Sanders represents the antithesis of what the nation stands for.
“Bernie Sanders is the grandfather of the new age of American socialism,” DiGiorgio said, calling to mind Trump’s assertion that America will “never” be a socialist country.
“Bernie Sanders… has the wrong ideas for Pennsylvania and the wrong ideas for America,” DiGiorgio went on.
DiGiorgio specifically said that Sanders’ Medicare for All plan would “bankrupt” them country.
When asked by a Times Leader reporter if he thought the American healthcare system needed an overhaul, he agreed, but said it needs to be led by the free market. DiGiorgio did say that healthcare as a whole is something the GOP needs to focus on more in its policies moving into 2020.
