Senator Bernie Sanders, the Democrat presidential candidate said on Wednesday night during a CNN interview how “a lot of people” would love to pay more in taxes if it meant that they got government-run health care.
“In most countries around the world the level of income and wealth inequality which in the United States today is worse than in any time since the 1920s with three families owning more wealth than the bottom half of America. That level of income and wealth inequality is much less severe than it is right here in the United States.” Sanders stated.
“But as you know, the taxes in many of those countries are much higher than they are in individual and personal tax are much higher than they are in the United States,” Anderson Cooper rebutted.
“Yeah, but I suspect that a lot of people in the country would be delighted to pay more in taxes if they had comprehensive health care as a human right,” Sanders shared. “I live 50 miles away from the Canadian border. You go to the doctor any time you want. You don’t take out your wallet. You have heart surgery, you have a heart transplant and you come out of the hospital and it costs you nothing.”
“Your kids in many countries around the world can go to the public colleges and universities tuition-free, wages in many cases are higher,” Sanders continued. “So there is a tradeoff, but at the end of the day, I think, that most people will believe they will be better off when their kids have educational opportunities without out of pocket expenses and when they have health care as a human right and they have affordable housing, when they have decent retirement security, I think most Americans will understand that is a good deal.”
Sanders continued, defining what democracy truly is.
“What I believe is that American people deserve freedom – true freedom. Freedom is an often used word but it’s time we took a hard look at what that word actually means. Ask yourself: what does it actually mean to be free?
Are you truly free if you are unable to go to a doctor when you are sick, or face financial bankruptcy when you leave the hospital?”
Are you truly free when you spend half of your limited income on housing, and are forced to borrow money from a payday lender at 200% interest rates.
Are you truly free if you are 70 years old and forced to work because you lack a pension or enough money to retire.
Are you truly free if you are unable to attend college or a trade school because your family lacks the income.”
“Are you truly free if you are forced to work 60 or 80 hours a week because you can’t find a job that pays a living wage?
Are you truly free if you are a mother or a father with a new born baby but you are forced to go back to work immediately after the birth because you lack paid family leave?
This is the core of what my politics are about.”
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