Monday, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), the health policy chair for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) 2020 presidential campaign, discussed Sanders’ Medicare for All plan.
The Washington Post’s Bob Costa asked the Washington State Democratic congresswoman on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who would be taxed to pay for Medicare for All.
“Well, if you did it on Wall Street speculation, then obviously the people who invest in the stock market and make enormous amounts of money off the stock market would be paying that tiny financial transactions tax on their financial transactions,” Jayapal said.
She continued, “I think the thing here to think about is that we have a health care system that literally causes people to die. We have a health care system where people are paying 10 times more for insulin in the United States than they do in Canada. We have a health care system where 500,000 people every year file for medically-related bankruptcy because of medically-related costs. So, this is untenable. The system as a whole will cost us $55 trillion over the next 10 years. So, the question here becomes, why would you protect the status quo and how do we make sure that every single person has universal care?”
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