Bernie Sanders Calls Graham-Cassidy Health Care Bill A ‘Disaster’ Right To Their Faces

In Monday night’s debate on the all-but-dead Graham-Cassidy healthcare plan, Bernie Sanders called the Republican plan a “disaster” – and he did it while standing right next to Sens. Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy.

Sanders correctly told his Republican colleagues that “every major health organization” in America opposes their inhumane bill.

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Sanders said:

Every major health organization in this country, whether it is the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, American Cancer Society, the Alzheimers Society – every single major medical organization in this country – thinks that their proposal is a disaster. So our job now is to defeat this disastrous proposal, get back to the drawing board, see if we can work together for some short-term fixes. Long term, in my view, I speak only for myself, this country has to join the rest of the industrialized world, guarantee health care as a right of all people. 

Despite the fact that the Graham-Cassidy plan is essentially dead, as Maine Sen. Susan Collins came out against it today, Sens. Graham and Cassidy are still working at this late hour to save it.

But, as Sanders said in Monday’s debate – right to their faces – it is a “disastrous” plan that would hurt millions of people. Everybody with a casual understanding of America’s health care system agrees with the Vermont senator.

With another piece of GOP repeal legislation being hurled into the scrapheap of history, the only way forward is to finally stop the GOP effort to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, improve the law’s shortcomings, and continue working to create a system in which every man, woman and child has access to affordable and comprehensive coverage.

Sean Colarossi

Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.