WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) its June 2017 Porker of the Month for his foolish quest to impose a single-payer healthcare system on the United States.
Sen. Sanders has been a proponent of socialized medicine for more than two decades. In a floor speech in the House of Representatives on March 4, 1993, Sen. Sanders announced his support for a single-payer proposal. His advocacy for such a system was the centerpiece of his quixotic 2016 presidential campaign and continues to the present day. He introduced another single-payer bill on March 26, 2017, and told NBC’s Meet the Press on June 25, 2017 that he believes single-payer is “the direction long-term that we should be going.”
Sen. Sanders tweeted on March 27, 2017, “Somehow in Canada, they've managed to provide healthcare to everyone in their country.” He neglects to mention the 2014 Commonwealth Fund report which ranked Canada tenth out of eleven prosperous nations in healthcare quality, as well as last in terms of timeliness of care. Perhaps that is why 52,000 Canadians flee to the United States every year for medical treatment.
Sen. Sanders has also expressed support for the British National Health Service (NHS). However, Sen. Sanders omits the ghastly conclusion of the British Red Cross earlier this year, which dubbed the NHS a “humanitarian crisis,” in need of major reform. As of last year, “3.4 million Brits were stuck on waiting lists — a 36 percent uptick since 2010. Last year, about a million people had to wait more than four months to get treatment. Almost 300,000 waited at least six months.”
CAGW President Tom Schatz said in a statement: “Sen. Sanders’ vision is one where the federal government controls every aspect of a citizens’ healthcare, from a doctor’s salary, to the medicines he or she can prescribe, to decisions about how much care a loved one is allowed to receive at a given point in their life. Sen. Sanders never details the enormous pitfalls inherent in a socialized health care system, which entails robbing citizens of quality care by taking decision-making power away from them and placing their lives in the hands of government bureaucrats. If Sen. Sanders wants to find a starting point for achieving quality healthcare, he need look no further than improving on the American system by increasing private competition, fostering pharmaceutical innovation, and giving patients and doctors the final say on what type of care they need.”
For his never-ending advocacy of socialized medicine, CAGW names Sen. Bernie Sanders its June 2017 Porker of the Month.
Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.
