CNN "The Lead With Jake Tapper" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Bernie Sanders

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

TAPPER: In our 2020 LEAD, we're just over 24 hours from tomorrow night's debate, and already battle lines are being drawn and candidates are vying to stand out, with a push to release new policy, including from Senator Kamala Harris of California, who today released a new health care plan that she says is Medicare for All, but would also keep private insurance.

Among other differences with the Sanders' Medicare for All proposal, it has a 10-year phase-in, instead of four years.

We have Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, on the phone right now, to get his take on Harris' health care plan.

Senator, thanks so much for calling in.

You say -- she says, rather, her plan addresses voter concerns about the transition process by taking 10 years, instead of four. What's your response to that, sir?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, first of all, I like Kamala. She is a friend of mine.

But her plan is not Medicare for All. What Medicare for All understands is that health care is a human right, and that the function of a sane health care system is not to make sure that insurance companies and drug companies make tens of billions of dollars in profits.

The function of Medicare for All is to guarantee health care to all people as soon as possible.

What we do, Jake -- and people criticize me for taking too long to do it -- we do it over a four-year period. And that is that, on the first year, we make Medicare eligibility from 65 down to 55. Then we go to 45. Then we go to 35. Then we cover everybody.

What we also do, importantly, is, we expand Medicare coverage for seniors, to include dental care, hearing aides and eyeglasses, something that does not exist now.

Furthermore, what we guarantee, which is not the case in the present system, is that every American have freedom of choice with regard to the doctor or the hospital they want to go to.

So in the midst of a major health care crisis, where over 80 million people have no health insurance or are underinsured today, 30,000 people are dying today. Half-a-million people a year go bankrupt because of their health -- their medical bills.

We think that four years is as long as it should be, not 10 years. And that's one of the reasons I disagree with Senator Harris.

TAPPER: So she would argue that her plan addresses the concerns of Americans who are worried about banning private insurance.

And she says that what her plan does is, it allows those companies, private insurance companies, to operate and compete with the public option, as it were, within a much tougher system.

Why is that less effective than your way?

SANDERS: Well, the private insurance companies may be greedy, they may be many things, but they're not stupid.

And the function of private insurance is not -- as every American who has dealt with an insurance company knows, not to provide quality care. It is to deny claims when they can. It is to make as much money as they possibly can.

At the end of the day, Jake, we as a nation have got to ask ourselves a very simple question. How does it happen that we spend almost twice as much per person on health care as do the people of any other nation?

And the answer is that we allow private insurance companies and drug companies to run our health care system. Under Medicare for All, we finally say that insurance companies and drug companies will not run our health care system, and that we're going to run a cost-effective system by eliminating the incredible profiteering that we're seeing from the insurance companies and the drug companies, the exorbitant salaries.

[16:40:12] For example, you're in Detroit. I'm in Detroit right now. The guy who is head of Blue Cross Blue Shield here in Michigan makes $19 million a year in compensation. And he is not one of the highest paid people.

You got the guy who is head of Aetna making a $500 million bonus for putting together a merger between Aetna and 500 million of health care dollars goes into the pocket of one person.

That is what the health insurance industry is about. And the reason we spend so much more than any other country is that those countries have understood that. And we have got to move in that direction.

TAPPER: Senator Bernie Sanders, thanks so much for calling in. We appreciate it. I look forward to seeing you on the debate stage tomorrow night.

SANDERS: Thank you, Jake.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source