Ted Cruz on Tuesday night sparred over the future of the Affordable Care Act in a nationally televised debate with, perhaps, his most ideal counterpart in the U.S. Senate: Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
Both agreed on the need to change the status quo in the health care sector, but that's about where the agreement stopped, as the two went back and forth and took questions from the audience. Well, Sanders implored, "Ted, let's work together for a Medicare-for-all, single payer insurer system".
The debate mostly served as an opportunity for me to lament that these two weren't ultimately the candidates in the general election-nobody talked about Rosie O'Donnell, for one thing, and I'm not sure anyone even uttered the word "emails".
While the two come from diametrically opposed positions on health care and the role of government, the fact is that Cruz ran against Obamacare from the right and Sanders ran against it from the left. Sanders presented his case for a single payer healthcare system, while Cruz presented his case for less government involvement and more competition. Not surprisingly, while Cruz thinks government management is health care's nemesis Sanders views it as its savior.
Or how bout, good luck on dealing with the health care program Republicans want to shaft you with?
"My question to you, Senator Sanders, is how do I grow my business, how do I employ more Americans without either raising the prices to my customers, or lowering wages to my employees?" the small business owner asked. I don't even pay myself a six-figure salary out of my business, if I paid health insurance not only would I be able to pay myself, we would go out of business.
"Ted thinks that's a bad government intrusion, I think it is the moral and right thing to do, " Sanders said. A woman with multiple sclerosis said she moved from a state that did not expand Medicaid under Obamacare to one that did, and immediately began receiving the treatments she needed.
Sanders agreed with Cruz' assertion that insurance companies were making too much, saying "the function of insurance companies is not to provide quality healthcare to all people, it's to make as much money as they possibly can".
Senator Susan Collins of ME favors a hybrid approach to healthcare that reduces some ACA regulations. "It was government control that messed this all up". Moderated by Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, the debate between Sen.
Sanders and Cruz have differing, if not opposite, stances on Obamacare, the federal health insurance system credited with providing 20 million people with coverage since former President Barack Obama passed it in 2010. That's why Bernie Sanders' performance in the debate was instructive for how Democrats should handle the issue going forward. The purchasing options for Americans has drastically decreased. The ideologically opposite senators found a few areas of agreement: they both said that lower price drugs should be imported from overseas.
Despite her unhappiness with Sanders' answers and his aversion to the Fort Worth salon industry, Hunter said the independent from Vermont is welcome anytime in her salons.
