http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/23/bernie-sanders-universal-_n_6534526.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013
In their ongoing efforts to roll back or hamstring Obamacare,
Republicans probably weren't hoping that the first Senate hearing on the
matter this year would feature a self-described "democratic socialist" getting GOP witnesses to back a key argument for universal health care.
Thursday's
hearing of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions was
devoted to the question of moving the full-time work standard under the
Affordable Care Act from 30 hours a week to 40 hours, and whether more
workers would be hurt by the higher or lower limit.
But to Sen.
Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has long supported the creation of a
universal health care system, battling over that particular point began
to seem absurd, and he opened his remarks by noting that in every other
developed country, such a debate would make no sense at all.
"The
argument of whether you provide health insurance to people who work 30
hours a week or whether they work 40 hours a week -- whoa," Sanders
said. "In every major country on Earth, health care is a right of all
people."
With that as his premise, he then asked three of the
hearing's witnesses -- two business owners and a school superintendent
-- whether their lives and daily endeavors would be improved if
government lifted from them the burden of providing health care to their
workers.
The panel's only Democratic witness, Joe Fugere, founder
of the Seattle-area Tutta Bella Pizzeria chain, readily answered that
it would.
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