Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) likely gave Republicans attempting to overturn Obamacare heartburn during a recent full committee
hearing of the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pension. It turns out that all three witnesses saw merit to Sen. Sanders' desire for true universal health care decoupled from the employer. The panel included Dr. Betsy Webb, superintendent of the Bangor school department in Maine; Andrew F. Puzder, chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants in Carpinteria, CA; and Joe Fugere, the founder of Tutta Bella Pizzeria in Seattle, WA.
Sen. Sanders started his questioning by first stating a few notables. He said if the Senate hearing was being televised internationally, no one internationally would know "what the hell we're talking about. Because in every major country in this world whether it is 100 miles away where I live in Burlington, Vermont, or throughout Europe or throughout Scandinavia people would literally not understand one word of this discussion. The argument of whether you provide health insurance for people who work 30 hours a week or whether they work 40 hours a week, wow! In every major country on earth health care is a right of all people—100 miles from where I live under a conservative prime minister in Canada."
Sen. Sanders also reminded the hearing that Americans pay twice more for health care than the second most expensive health care in the world. "So Mr. Chairman, this is a very interesting discussion, but we are not discussing what is relevant. What's relevant is should health care be a right of all people or should businesses, Mr. Fugere, and the others have to spend a great deal of time and energy figuring out how they provide health care to their people or how they do not. If we did what virtually every major country on Earth did and say that health care is a right of all people, not a right for a business. We have the absurd situation where Mr. Fugere feels that his moral responsibility is to provide good health care for his workers. Thank you very much for that. But the guy who owns the pizzeria across the street may not feel the same way. And you are at a competitive disadvantage because you are doing the right thing."
Sen. Sanders then asked the panel what it would do for their respective businesses not to have to worry about the health care of their employees at all and concentrate on their products and services. Both the Democrat on the panel and the two Republicans agreed it would make things better.
In effect a panel that held to show how Obamacare is not working or needs repealing showed how much further it needs to go. It showed that when a sensible discussion is held with real employers a common answer can be reached. When a common answer is reached one can develop much more effective policy.
As I said many times before, Obamacare is just the first step toward the only effective method to pay for health care, a single payer system, with Medicare for all. That is why Republicans are fighting it as hard as they are. They see the end to a system where the healthcare consumer can be fleeced for the profit of a few.