At a Senate Health Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) questioned HHS Sec. RFK Jr. about healthcare for Americans.
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00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me stop going back to prescription drugs.
00:04Mr. Secretary, did I hear you correctly to state that your goal is to have Americans pay the lowest prices in the world,
00:13or equivalent to what is paid in other major countries? That is my goal.
00:17That you are prepared to work with us on legislation to achieve that goal?
00:22Absolutely.
00:23All right. And I believe there's bipartisan support for it.
00:26I believe that if the leadership here prioritizes that, we can do that in a very short period of time.
00:32Look forward to that.
00:34Let me ask you this, as Secretary of HHS.
00:40We have in America today some 85 million Americans who are uninsured or underinsured.
00:47We spend more per capita, as you've indicated, than any other country.
00:51Is health care a human right?
00:53Are we making America healthy when so many people cannot afford to go to a doctor,
00:59when 68,000 people a year die because they don't get to a doctor when they should?
01:04Is health care a human right?
01:06Will you work with us to guarantee health care to every man, woman, and child in America?
01:10Well, I think you're asking two different questions.
01:12You're asking a philosophical question about whether it is a human right, like a constitutional right.
01:20As an attorney, I would say that it's not a right of a kind that we otherwise enshrine in the Constitution.
01:30Because health care costs your neighbor money.
01:34If I smoke cigarettes for 20 years, I make that choice, which is my choice.
01:40I don't mean to, you know, I don't have a lot of time.
01:42So I just, I am here.
01:43If you ask a question, if you're asking me a philosophical question, I got to, you know, give you a thoughtful answer.
01:49Within 30 seconds.
01:51Yeah.
01:52It's a problem.
01:53It's not like freedom of speech, which costs, you know, everybody.
01:56But every other country, Mr. Secretary, every other country guarantees health care to all people as a right.
02:03Should we, as Americans?
02:05The objective is to get Americans at the level of health care that they have, if they want the choice, which Americans want.
02:15They don't want the choice to be uninsured.
02:17They don't want the choice to die because they don't get to a doctor on top.
02:21Americans prefer private insurance to other insurance sources.
02:27Do you believe?
02:28Okay.
02:28And what I would say is, you know, I want to find a solution to this.
02:33I want every American to have insurance.
02:34President Trump wants every American to be insured and have access to health care.
02:39The question is, how do we get there?
02:41Obamacare is not working.
02:43It is not working.
02:45And this is the.
02:46Are we can, okay, sorry to interrupt you.
02:49All right.
02:50The reconciliation.
02:52My job is to make it work.
02:54All right.
02:55I have limited time.
02:56The peace, the reconciliation bill that is now being worked on in the House will come to the Senate.
03:01As it stands right now cuts Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act by more than $715 billion, which the CBO has estimated would eliminate health insurance for 13.7 million Americans.
03:17And also raise co-payments for millions of others.
03:20Is throwing 13 million Americans off of the health care they have, poor and working class people keeping America healthy.
03:29Well, I haven't seen that number.
03:31I've seen the number 8 million.
03:33And here are the people.
03:36The cuts are not true cuts.
03:38The cuts are eliminations of waste, abuse, and fraud.
03:43And I can go through.
03:44I can go through the people who will lose it.
03:49A million people.
03:50There are a million people.
03:51I really don't need to be rude.
03:52But as you know, I have a very limited amount of time.
03:54You ask the question, I'm going to answer it.
03:56Well, yeah, I've got a bunch of questions that I would like you to answer as well.
04:00All right, we talk about austerity doing more with less.
04:05But in that very same bill that is being worked on in the House right now, there are $235 billion in tax breaks for the top two-tenth of 1%.
04:17Do you think that makes sense when that same bill would throw 13 million people off of Medicaid?
04:26Should we give tax breaks to billionaires and throw kids and others off of Medicaid?
04:32You're conflating the congressional bills with proposals from the president.
04:39The president is not making sure.
04:42No, I'm talking about the congressional bill.
04:42I'm talking about the bill, the reconciliation bill.
04:45I mean, the president is not trying to do tax cuts for billionaires.
04:49He's trying to have no tax on tips and no tax for-
04:51$235 billion by-
04:55How many billionaires do you know that are making overtime or making any part of the-
05:01$235 billion?
05:03Look, it's a big bill.
05:04There are a lot of provisions in it.
05:06But you cannot deny it.
05:07The top two-tenths of 1% will get $235 billion in tax breaks while we cut Medicaid.
05:13Okay.
05:15Thank you very much.