Senator Amy Klobuchar and rival Bernie Sanders differed sharply over health care reform during last night’s round two Democratic presidential debate in Detroit. Klobuchar says allowing a public option, but keeping private insurance, “is the easiest way to move forward quickly. People can’t wait. I’ve got my friend Nicole [Holt-Smith] out there whose son… actually died trying to ration his insulin as a restaurant manager, and he died because he didn’t have enough money to pay for it.” Sanders fired back, “People talk about having insurance. There are millions of people who have insurance, they can’t go to the doctor and when they come out of the hospital, they go bankrupt.” Sanders is pushing “Medicare for All”.
Senator Elizabeth Warren also argued “Medicare for All” is the solution saying, “I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for.” Klobuchar responded, “When we have guy in the White House that has now told over ten thousand lies”, Democrats better be straightforward with the American people. “Do I think that we are gonna end up voting for a plan that kicks half of America off of their current insurance in four years? No, I don’t think we’re gonna do that. I think there is a better way,” Klobuchar says.
How to reduce gun violence in America was another major issue in last night’s debate. Several contenders, including Senator Bernie Sanders, agreed with Senator Amy Klobuchar that the problem is the N-R-A. Klobuchar said, “I sat across from the President of the United States after Parkland… and I watched and wrote down when nine times he said he wanted universal background checks. The next day, he goes and he meets with the N-R-A and he folds. As your president, I will not fold.” But presidential hopeful Marianne Williamson fired back politicians, including her fellow candidates, have taken money from corporate donors and “to think that they now have the moral authority to say, we’re gonna take them on, I don’t think the Democratic Party should be surprised that so many Americans believe, yada-yada-yada.”