At a rally to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of Medicare on Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders announced that he will soon introduce legislation to provide Medicare-for-all single-payer health insurance. On Wednesday, Sanders criticized Republicans’ push for a vote on legislation to cut $500 million in annual funding for Planned Parenthood, calling it “part of a long-term smear campaign by people who want to deny women in this country the right to control their own bodies.” Last Sunday on Meet the Press, Sanders, in response to the fatal shooting in a Louisiana movie theater, called for stricter gun control measures including universal instant background checks and restrictions on firearms not used for hunting.

Medicare-For-All

Addressing a rally outside the Capitol to mark the 50th anniversary of Medicare, Sanders on Thursday announced that he will introduce legislation to provide Medicare-for-all health insurance. “We need to expand Medicare to cover every man, woman and child as a single-payer national health care program,” Sanders told the crowd. Providing health insurance for everyone in the United States would result in better care, improved access and lower costs by eliminating the middle-man role played by insurance companies that now rake in billions of dollars in profits. Under today’s health care system in the United States, thousands of people die each year because they delay seeking care they cannot afford. Read more here.

Planned Parenthood

Sanders on Wednesday rebuked Senate Republicans’ attempt to defund Planned Parenthood, called the effort “an attack on women’s health.” In a statement, he added, “Stripping funding for Planned Parenthood would punish the 2.7 million Americans, especially low-income women, who rely on its clinics for affordable, quality health care services including cancer prevention, STI and HIV testing and general primary health care services.” Read more here.

Stricter Gun Control 

Following the tragic shooting in a Lafayette, Louisiana movie theater that left two people dead and nine others injured, Sanders called for stricter gun control measures last Sunday. "For a start," Sanders told Chuck Todd on NBC's Meet the Press, we need "universal instant background checks. Nobody should have a gun who has a criminal background, who's involved in domestic abuse situations. People should not have guns who are going to hurt other people, who are unstable. Second of all, I believe that we need to make sure that certain types of guns used to kill people exclusively, not for hunting, they should not be sold in the United States of America. We have a huge loophole now with gun shows that should be eliminated. There may be other things that we have to do." Watch the interview here.