OBAMA SAYS SANDERS, FAR LEFT HELPED UNDERMINE OBAMACARE

BY REUTERS

President Barack Obama said on Friday that criticism from the left wing of his own Democratic Party helped feed into the unpopularity of Obamacare, his signature healthcare reform law.

Obama has been spending part of his last two weeks in office urging supporters to speak out against plans by Republicans - who will soon control both the White House and Congress - to dismantle the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

At a town hall event with Vox Media, Obama acknowledged the politics have been stacked against his reforms, mainly blaming Republicans who he said refused to help make legislative fixes to Obamacare, which provides subsidies for private insurance to lower-income Americans who do not have healthcare plans at work.

But Obama also said Liberals like former Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders had contributed to the program's unpopularity.

During Sanders' campaign for the presidential nomination, he proposed replacing Obamacare with a government-run single-payer health insurance system based on Medicare, the government plan for elderly and disabled Americans.

"In the 'dissatisfied' column are a whole bunch of Bernie Sanders supporters who wanted a single-payer plan," Obama said in the interview.

"The problem is not that they think Obamacare is a failure. The problem is that they don't think it went far enough and that it left too many people still uncovered," Obama said.

Michael Briggs, a spokesman for Sanders, agreed that many people would rather the government "take on the private insurance industry and the pharmaceutical companies" and play a bigger role in providing healthcare.

"There are many millions of Americans, including many of Bernie's supporters, who don’t understand why we are the only major country on earth that does not provide healthcare as a right and they don’t understand why we pay more but get less for what we spend on healthcare," Briggs said.

Polling by the Kaiser Family Foundation last month showed 46 percent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of Obamacare, while 43 percent have a favorable view. Americans are also split on whether the law should be repealed.

Trump and congressional Republicans have vowed to quickly repeal the law, but Obama and Democrats have argued they should reveal a replacement plan before dismantling the program.

More than 20 million previously uninsured Americans gained health coverage through Obamacare, according to the White House. Coverage was extended by expanding the Medicaid program for the poor and through online exchanges where consumers can receive income-based subsidies.

Bernie Sanders: Supreme Court is paving the way to an oligarchic society

By David Ferguson/Raw Story

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) blasted the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Wednesday to abolish overall federal campaign spending limits, meaning that wealthy individuals now have carte blanche to spend as much as they like to affect the outcomes of federal elections.

“Freedom of speech, in my view, does not mean the freedom to buy the United States government,” said Sanders in a statement.

Wednesday’s 5-to-4 Court vote struck down limits on total amounts that individual donors can contribute to parties, candidates and political action committees within a two-year federal election cycle.

Sanders warned that this will give billionaires like brothers Charles and David Koch unfettered access to the airwaves for campaign ad buys and to candidates themselves.

“What world are the five conservative Supreme Court justices living in?” Sanders said. “To equate the ability of billionaires to buy elections with ‘freedom of speech’ is totally absurd. The Supreme Court is paving the way toward an oligarchic form of society in which a handful of billionaires like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson will control our political process.”

Wednesday’s ruling, he said, echoes the “disastrous” 2012 Citizens United verdict, which led to an unprecedented $7 billion in political spending for the 2012 election.

The current cap on spending per individual is a limit of $123,200 per cycle. That includes a separate $48,600 on individual donations to particular candidates.

To remove these spending limits, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the dissenting opinion on Wednesday, “eviscerates our nation’s campaign finance laws.”

Sanders has proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would overturn Citizens Unitedand make the type of pay-for-play Congressional culture it engenders a thing of the past. His website said that the Senator hopes to assure Americans that “the right to vote and the ability to make campaign contributions and expenditures belong only to real people.”

Sen. Sanders calls for constitutional amendment to overrule Citizens United

• By Stephen C. Webster
• 
  

Appearing with MSNBC’s liberal opinion host Cenk Uygur, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said he would support a constitutional amendment that overrule the Supreme Court’s controversial “Citizens United” decision that repealed nearly 100 years of campaign finance law.

The decision permits corporations to anonymously give unlimited sums of money to groups not officially connected with presidential campaigns.

The Washington, D.C.-based Committee for Economic Development suggested last year that the ruling could have the effect of turning corporations into miniature political parties, leading to what one of the Center’s trustees called the eventual corruption of American democracy.

“We have to pass a constitutional amendment to end [the] Citizens United ruling that brings forth the radical opinion that a Corporation is not a person and a handful of billionaires cannot pollute and take over the political system by spending unlimited sums of money in secret to elect candidates who support their agenda,” Sanders told Uygur.

This video is from MSNBC, broadcast Wednesday, May 18, 2011.

Bernie Sanders: Republicans do not want America to succeed

By David Edwards

Sen. Bernie Sanders told CBS' Bob Schieffer Sunday that Republicans are more interested in gaining power than they are in helping the country.

"I think in his heart the president is a very, very decent guy," said Sanders. "He wants to do what most Americans want him to do: to reach out, bring people together.

"But what has happened is the Republicans have said no, no, no. They have waged more filibusters than any time in the history of this country. They have been the party of no and obstructionism," Sanders continued. "At some point, what the president has got to understand is they do not want America to succeed. They're into politics."

Pressed by Schieffer if that was fair to say the GOP didn't want the US to succeed, at least with a Democratic president in the White House, Sanders said yes.

"That's a strong statement to make," Schieffer said. "Is it really fair to say they don't want America to succeed?"

"Yup," Sanders replied. "I think gaining power is their major initiative. On the floor of the Senate, Bob, I've got to tell you, every single day it's 60 votes to pass legislation. That is unprecedented in American history."

This video is from CBS' Face the Nation, broadcast Oct. 3, 2010.

Sanders: Chamber Would Rather Have Companies Pay Vietnamese 20 Cents An Hour Than Hire Americans

By Zaid Jilani Today, Senate Democrats tried to bring the Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act, which would give “companies…that shift overseas jobs to the U.S.” a special payroll tax holiday, to the floor for a full vote. Yet thanks to a united Republican filibuster and the defection of a handful of Democratic caucus senators — Max Baucus (MT), Ben Nelson (NE), Jon Tester (MT), Mark Warner (VA), and Joe Lieberman (CT) — the Democrats failed to achieve cloture and were unable to bring the bill up for a vote.

Last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce declared its opposition to the bill, claiming that “replacing a job that is based in another country with a domestic job does not stimulate economic growth.” The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) also came out against the bill, arguing it would “jeapordize” American job creation.

Today, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) answered questions from reporters about the legislation’s demise. He told them that, “of course,” NAM and the Chamber opposed the offshoring bill because they “much prefer paying people in Vietnam 20 cents an hour than American workers a living wage“:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Tuesday blasted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) for opposing legislation that attempts to in-source jobs by granting companies a payroll tax holiday that shift overseas jobs to the U.S. and limits the use of tax deferral. “Of course they are [opposed],” Sanders told reporters. “They much prefer paying people in Vietnam 20 cents an hour than American workers a living wage.” [...]

Sanders suggested that these organizations oppose the bill because it bolsters the bottom lines of their members. “It is to their advantage, in many cases, to shut down plants here and pay people a fraction of the wages that American workers lose by going to China,” Sanders said. “What’s the surprise about that?”

The Chamber has made passing legislation that makes it easier for its member corporations to offshore labor a centerpiece of their agenda. NAM also makes expanding U.S. hiring overseas a main part of their legislative plans.

Update Sanders appeared on MSNBC's The Ed Show last night to talk about the offshoring bill. Watch it:

Exclusive: Sanders joins Dems in final push for public option

By Sahil Kapur WASHINGTON -- As of Wednesday early afternoon, nine senators had signed a letter urging passage of the public health insurance option through reconciliation.

Make it ten.

Sen. Bernie Sanders's (I-VT) spokesman Michael Briggs confirmed to Raw Story that he will join Democratic Sens. Michael Bennett (CO), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Jeff Merkley (OR), Sherrod Brown (OH), Al Franken (MN), Pat Leahy, John Kerry (MA), Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) and Roland Burris (IL) in a last-ditch push for the provision.

The first four co-sponsored the letter and released it Tuesday, and The Plum Line's Greg Sargent confirmed Wednesday morning that the latter four will sign, just before Burris joined the list.

"The American people have made it clear that they want the option to buy their insurance through a Medicare-type, government-run public insurance plan," Sanders explained in a statement e-mailed to Raw Story

"The public option is not just important for the individual consumer, it is an important mechanism to provide competition for the private, for-profit health insurance industry, to keep them honest, and to lower the overall cost of health care in our country," he said.

The signatories urge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) to "bring for a vote before the full Senate a public health insurance option under budget reconciliation rules."

The public option, which has been the topic of explosive controversy throughout the health care deliberations, was passed in the House legislation but eliminated from the Senate version that was later approved.

The whole process hit a gridlock in January after the election of Republican Scott Brown to the senate, which gave the party the votes it needed to filibuster the final motion.

The letter continues, "There are four fundamental reasons why we support this approach – its potential for billions of dollars in cost savings; the growing need to increase competition and lower costs for the consumer; the history of using reconciliation for significant pieces of health care legislation; and the continued public support for a public option."

With Republicans poised to block another senate motion, Democrats have discussed using reconciliation -- which would require a simple majority of 51 senators -- to amend the bill before the House holds a final vote. A December poll found that six in ten Americans support the provision.

The liberal advocacy groups Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy For America have endorsed the letter, which also encourages citizens to sign in the support of the idea. One hundred and nineteen members of Congress have also signed it.

Next Thursday President Obama will convene a bipartisan summit with Republican leaders to discuss the two parties' differences on the legislation. After initially equivocating, Republicans have confirmed they will attend.