Sanders Calls State of US Health Care an “International Embarrassment”

By: Sharon Zhang; Truthout

Following the release of a recent poll finding that Americans have very little faith in the quality of the U.S. health care system, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) took to the Senate floor on Tuesday to once again call for the passage of Medicare for All.

“While it is not discussed much in the corporate media or here in the halls of Congress, we have, today, in the United States, the most inefficient, bureaucratic, and expensive health care system in the world,” Sanders said. “And that’s not just what I believe. That is what the American people know to be true because of their lived experience.”

The lawmaker cited a recent Associated Press/NORC poll released on Monday which found that over 80 percent of Americans are at least moderately concerned about accessing health care when they need it. Sanders highlighted findings that only 12 percent of Americans think health care is handled “very” or “extremely” well in the U.S., that only 6 percent believe prescription drug costs are handled that way and that opinions about the quality of mental health care are similarly low at just 5 percent.