MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript: ACA and Government Shutdown
Interview
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For more, let me turn to our friends, Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent from Vermont.
Senator, good to have you with us tonight. Thanks for your time. We have seen the song and dance on the Senate floor. We`ve heard the President and Former President with the facts. But let`s zero in on Cruz, getting blame where I think it`s not deserved that really isn`t he the majority for the Republicans? I mean aren`t the majority of Republicans right with him on these issues. Your thought, Senator.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I) VERMONT: No, I think you`re right. I think people do not appreciate how far right the Republican Party has gone.
Their view in terms of what we should do on healthcare is not to address the reality that 48 million are underinsured. Their reality is to voucherize Medicare, make massive cuts in Medicaid.
These are the guys who want to abolish the minimum wage. Do away with the environmental protection agency. Give more tax breaks to billionaires.
This is a very, very, right wing party right now.
I think the -- what everybody should know is that on their 43rd try, the Republicans will not be successful in defunding Obamacare. And most importantly we are just beginning, just beginning to catch up to the rest of the industrialized world that guarantees healthcare to all people as a right.
And Cruz is quite right, that once people begin to see that healthcare is a right for human beings, you know what? They like it and they want more of it. And they do not want to endanger their children and their families and themselves when an illness comes.
Healthcare is a right. We`re beginning to make some progress.
SCHULTZ: Well, there`s a baseline here. There`s a benchmark here.
Other countries that have gotten the government involved in healthcare and the delivery service, the people haven`t rejected it. They haven`t rejected it in Canada.
They haven`t rejected it in Europe. Once this gets going this way, people realize the benefits of it and we have better outcomes.
SANDERS: Absolutely.
SCHULTZ: Now Senator, let`s kick it down the road -- go ahead sir, if you have a comment on that.
SANDERS: Absolutely, even when you have in this European countries or Canada, conservative government, it never ever occurs to them to move into the directions of America and tell people that healthcare is not a right.
You have to have preexisting conditions. People in those countries would think that that is insane. So they nimble (ph) around the edges what -- where you have established national healthcare systems, people want it, they do not want to move in the direction of the United States.
SCHULTZ: OK, Harry Reid on record saying that he`s going to take this defunding clause out, going to pass it, kick it back over to the House.
That takes us to the shut down and the threat of the Republicans. What do you think is going to happen?
SANDERS: You know, I`m not much into speculation. My guess is that at the end of .
SCHULTZ: Do you think they`d really do it?
SANDERS: I think that they understand and some of their smart people understand that would be very, very bad for the Republican Party. They probably will not shut the government down.
SCHULTZ: All right. Senator great to have you with us tonight, I appreciate your time. Bernie Sanders, here on the Ed Show. Thank you.
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