{"id":6255,"date":"2017-09-22T19:06:06","date_gmt":"2017-09-23T02:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=6255"},"modified":"2017-09-22T19:22:25","modified_gmt":"2017-09-23T02:22:25","slug":"sen-bernie-sanders-rallies-medicare-lauds-mccain-opposition-gop-health-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2017\/09\/22\/sen-bernie-sanders-rallies-medicare-lauds-mccain-opposition-gop-health-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Bernie Sanders rallies for Medicare-for-All, lauds McCain opposition to GOP health bill"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Senator Bernie Sanders speaks at the annual convention of the California Nurses Association at Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, Sept. 22, 2017. Sanders, who introduced a single-payer health care legislation, is trying to bring more attention to and gather support for his bill. (Dan Honda\/Bay Area News Group)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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By\u00a0CASEY TOLAN<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0ctolan@bayareanewsgroup.com<\/a>\u00a0| Bay Area News Group<\/p>\n

SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 As the latest Republican effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act appeared to take a fatal blow on Friday, two liberal heavyweights boosted single-payer health care plans as the best alternative approach amid growing national interest in the once-unlikely system.<\/p>\n

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders received a hero\u2019s welcome from the California Nurses Association as he urged support for his Medicare-for-All bill in Congress and denounced the latest GOP health care bill.<\/p>\n

A few hours before Sanders spoke, California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom came within a whisker of endorsing a state bill to create a single-payer health care system, urging state lawmakers to move it out of committee, where it has been blocked by legislative leaders.<\/p>\n

Their speeches came as Arizona Sen. John McCain announced his opposition to legislation sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy that would repeal Obamacare and turn billions of federal health care dollars over to the states. The bill would result in\u00a0$138.8 billion in federal funding cuts to California from 2020 through 2027, an analysis by the state Department of Health Care Services found.<\/p>\n

Sanders thanked McCain for his stance, calling the legislation \u201ceven worse\u201d than previous GOP health bills.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur struggle on this legislation is not over,\u201d the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate said.\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re going to defeat this disastrous Graham-Cassidy bill, and then we go on to pass Medicare-for-All.\u201d<\/p>\n

Medicare is a single-payer system that currently covers people age 65 and older, and the state\u2019s single-payer bill sponsored by the nurses\u2019 association would replace all health insurance companies with a taxpayer-supported, state-run plan.<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s event felt like a campaign rally \u2014 complete with the same Simon & Garfunkel soundtrack from Sanders\u2019 presidential primary ads \u2014 and many attendees said they hoped to see him run for president again in 2020. \u201cRun, Bernie, run!\u201d they chanted as he came onstage.<\/p>\n

The 76-year-old Sanders, who introduced his Medicare-for-All bill in the Senate earlier this month, has recruited 16 co-sponsors for the bill, including Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California. While its chances of success in a Republican-controlled Congress are almost nonexistent, Sanders promised a wholehearted fight for the bill.<\/p>\n

Sanders\u2019 advocacy has already made single-payer, once considered a radical notion, part of the mainstream health care debate. A Harvard-Harris Poll released this week found that 52 percent of Americans favor a single-payer system, compared to 48 percent who oppose it.<\/p>\n

\u201cMedicare for senior citizens has worked, and we want Medicare to work for every man, woman and child in this country,\u201d Sanders said.\u00a0\u201cAfter decades of talk, now is the time to get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some Democrats had accused Sanders of focusing too heavily on his single-payer bill at a time when the Graham-Cassidy legislation appeared to be close to passing. But he argued that it was important to keep up the Medicare-for-All fight and defend Obamacare at the same time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must be honest and acknowledge that with all the gains of the Affordable Care Act, it has not gone far enough,\u201d he said. \u201cMaintaining the status quo is just not good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

About 2,000 people crowded into Yerba Buena Gardens to see Sanders\u2019 speech, with the contingent of nurses making up a sea of red T-shirts. Some were literally feeling the burn on an uncharacteristically hot and sunny San Francisco day.<\/p>\n

Nurses passed around iPhone selfies of themselves with Sanders and shared horror stories of how cost-cutting insurance companies shafted their patients. Zenisa Quebral, an intensive care unit nurse in Stockton, said she\u2019s had patients get sicker after insurers required her to do cheaper procedures when more expensive ones were necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see firsthand why we need Medicare-for-All,\u201d Quebral said.<\/p>\n

Jo Ann Lingle, 73, who came from Chicago for the convention, said she thought Sanders should make another try for the presidency.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a champion,\u201d she said. \u201cWe see so much of our health care dollars wasted in profits, and he wants to use it for people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier Friday, Newsom voiced support for California\u2019s single-payer legislation. Senate Bill 562 has been stuck in the state Assembly, where Speaker Anthony Rendon has blocked it, saying the bill is incomplete because it doesn\u2019t say how the new system would be funded.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time to move 562 along,\u201d Newsom said to cheers and a standing ovation from the nurses. \u201cIt\u2019s time to do that now.\u201d<\/p>\n

While he didn\u2019t explicitly endorse the bill in its current form, Newsom articulated his strongest support for it so far and vowed a \u201cfirm and absolute commitment\u201d to pass universal health care if he\u2019s elected governor next year. \u201cNo one is saying it\u2019s perfect or complete, but that\u2019s not the point. That\u2019s what the legislative process is all about,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In his speech, Newsom barely mentioned the Graham-Cassidy bill, but he later told reporters that the bill was \u201ca potential tsunami the likes (of which) we never could have imagined\u201d for California.<\/p>\n

He rejected criticism from some Democrats that liberals should be talking more about Graham-Cassidy than about single payer. \u201cThis whole idea that we can only do one thing at a time is insulting, not just absurd,\u201d he said. \u201cFundamentally the problem of the Democratic Party is that \u2026 we have no positive alternative vision.\u201d<\/p>\n

RoseAnn DeMoro, the executive director of the nurses\u2019 association, which has been California\u2019s loudest voice for single-payer health care, praised both Newsom and Sanders.<\/p>\n

\u201cWherever it is down the line, when there is the next president of the U.S. that comes from California, it will be Gavin Newsom,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But he would have to wait for Sanders, she said: \u201cNext time, hopefully, we want Bernie Sanders for president.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senator Bernie Sanders speaks at the annual convention of the California Nurses Association at Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, Sept. 22, 2017. Sanders, who introduced a single-payer health care legislation, is trying to bring more attention to and gather support for his bill. (Dan Honda\/Bay Area… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6255"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6255"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6261,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6255\/revisions\/6261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}