Comprehensive health care reform ran into headwinds on Capitol Hill. The interests of the politically-potent insurance industry collided with the overwhelming support of the American public for a health care plan that includes a public insurance program. Thousands of you sent your stories about health care in America to Senator Bernie Sanders. Tens of thousands signed Sanders’ petition on health care reform. As legislation was being drafted in Congress, E.J. Dionne Jr. warned of “the bipartisanship of fools” in a column that asked these good questions: “Where did we get the idea that the only good health care bill is a bipartisan bill? Is bipartisanship more important than whether a proposal is practical and effective?”

Health Care – Public Option One of the biggest disputes in Washington over health care reform legislation is whether there should be a public insurance program to compete with private insurance companies. In the rest of America, the question has been asked and answered. Three out of four people favor letting people sign up for a public insurance plan that would compete with private companies, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. The survey published on Wednesday found that 75 percent of the respondents considered it extremely important or quite important that any health care reform should include a public plan administered by the federal government. To read the survey, click here. What’s your opinion? Click here to take our own poll.

Health Care – Sign the Petition “To me, the evidence is overwhelming that we must end the private insurance company domination of healthcare in our country and move toward a publicly funded, single-payer, Medicare-for-all approach,” Sanders wrote in a column published by The Christian Science Monitor. “Our current private health insurance system is the most costly, wasteful, complicated, and bureaucratic in the world…Despite the fact that we spend almost twice as much per person on healthcare as any other country, our healthcare outcomes lag behind many other nations…The main reason we get such bad results is that the function of private health insurance companies is not to provide quality healthcare for all, but to make huge profits for those who own the companies. As of Friday, more than 27,000 people signed a petition supporting Sanders’ single-payer proposal. To read the column, click here. To sign the petition, click here.   

Health Care – Voices from Vermont and America Sanders asked people to share their experiences with health care and insurance. As of Friday, more than 2,700 e-mails came pouring in like this one from Danby, Vt. “I'm active duty military. I have served in the Air Force for almost 13 years now. I have ‘government’ medical coverage. I may have minor complaints here and there, but over all I would say that it's a good system. Seeing how much money my parents pay for health care makes my blood boil. I fail to see the difference between the insurance companies and a mugger who holds a gun to your head demanding ‘your money or your life.’” And this one from Santa Fe, N.M. “I get my health care through the Department of Veterans Affairs. It is, without a doubt, socialized medicine. It is also excellent health care, and it is administratively more efficient than any other system I've used. For example, the other day I had a back injury. From the time I walked into my doctor's office until the time I left the radiology center was 50 minutes. And I had a diagnosis and suggested treatment from my doctor within five hours. No for-profit outfit can match that.” To read more stories or to send a message to the senator, click here.

Financial Regulation President Barack Obama proposed sweeping new rules for the nation's financial system on Wednesday.  Sen. Bernie Sanders, along with the four other senators who Newsweek called "The Insurgents", had met with the president to press for stronger financial regulations.  “The president’s plan to re-regulate the financial services industry is a major improvement over our current fundamentally broken system that led to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression," Sanders said. “While the plan is a step in the right direction, we should do even more...  I look forward to working with the Obama administration and my colleagues in the Senate to make sure that the financial mess we are in today never happens again.”  To read the senator's full statement, click here. To read the Newsweek article, click here.


War Contractors Lawmakers on Thursday sharply criticized a federal program that relies on private insurance companies to provide medical care and benefits to civilians injured while working in support of the U.S. military effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sanders said he was outraged by evidence that insurers made windfall profits. Chicago-based CNA Financial Corp. earned as much as 50 percent profit on some of its war-zone policies, according to company records submitted to the subcommittee. "There has been huge wartime profiteering," Sanders told the Los Angeles Times. To read the article, click here.

Sanders and Sotomayor Senator Sanders met Thursday with Judge Sonia Sotomayor  and came away from the session with the Supreme Court nominee with "good positive feelings.” He told The Burlington Free Press, “At this point, she impresses me as someone who is a strong advocate for constitutional rights and the rule of law. I wanted to get her views on how you protect constitutional rights while you are fighting terrorism. That's a tough balance." To read the article, click here.