PBS NEWSHOUR: Sen. Bernie Sanders is currently one of the leading candidates in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. Fresh off his New Hampshire victory Tuesday, Sanders sits down with Judy Woodruff to discuss why he thinks his campaign has a good shot at winning in Nevada, his “extraordinary” grassroots organization, how he would change health care and whether he accepts money from billionaires.
From the February 13, 2020 episode:
JUDY WOODRUFF, PBS NEWSHOUR: Let me ask you about some of your agenda.
In Nevada, a powerful culinary workers union, they announced today they are not going to endorse a candidate. It wasn’t so many days ago that they put out a flyer saying that they oppose the kind of single-payer health plan that you have endorsed.
How do you respond to their position on this?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Look, they are a great union. And I know their leadership, and we work and will work very closely with them.
Some of their — they’re part Unite Here, the broader union, and some of the locals in Unite Here are strongly supporting us, who have the same health care plan as the culinary workers. And those unions believe in Medicare for all. Many unions do believe in Medicare for all.
WOODRUFF: They’re saying your plan would take away the health care that their members have.
SANDERS: Well, I don’t quite agree.
I think our plan for them and for every person in America would expand the health care that we have. We are going to expand Medicare to include home health care, dental care, hearing aids, eyeglasses.
We’re going to do away with premiums and co-payments and deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses. We’re going to take on the greed and corruption of the pharmaceutical industry and make sure that nobody in America has to spend more than $200 a year for prescription drugs.
Look, Judy, at the end of the day, we are spending twice as much per capita as do the people of any other major nation. And yet, despite that huge expenditure, 87 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, 30,000 die, 500,000 go bankrupt. That doesn’t make sense.
WOODRUFF: But they are opposing your position.
Some of your supporters in Nevada attacked the union after this…
(CROSSTALK)
SANDERS: Well, you know, it’s a funny thing.
Obviously, that is not acceptable to me. And I don’t know who these so-called supporters are.
You know, we are living in a strange world on the Internet. And, sometimes, people attack people in somebody else’s name.
But let me be very clear. Anybody making personal attacks against anybody else in my name is not part of our movement. We don’t want them.
And I’m not so sure, to be honest with you, that they are necessarily part of our movement. You understand, you know, the nature of the Internet. It’s a strange world out there.
