Bernie Sanders

I think we need more information from the BLS so that we can, as policymakers and the American people, get a real understanding of what is going on in the economy, so we can come up with policy to address the problems.

Will you work with me under the concept of a Genuine Progress Indicator which tries to measure how the economy is, in fact, doing for the average person dealing with real wages, dealing with distribution of wealth and income?

I think that one of the crucial parts of helping that to filter down is something that we are also engaged in, and that is research to demonstrate the efficacy in specific circumstances of certain alternative medicine therapies.

That may be true, and correct me if I am wrong. If somebody is a well trained, qualified acupuncturist, for example--that person as an acupuncturist as opposed to, say, being an M.D. who practices acupuncture--that acupuncturist, himself…

I want to work with you to expand those concepts, to be more aggressive, because I think you have a lot of folks out there who are concerned about overmedication, the ways that we can deal with pain without a lot of drugs, et cetera.

You brought forth a very, very ambitious goal, and you said that you wanted to process all claims in 125 days and with a 98 percent accuracy by 2015.

I believe you established that goal not long after you took your position.

If there is anything that many of us have learned in recent years, it is that the real cost of war is far, far greater than simply paying for the tanks and guns and planes and the manpower to fight those wars.

In terms of health care, in a nation with over 45 million people lacking any health insurance and at a time when the cost of health care in this country is far higher than any other country on earth, the VA is recognized by many as…

At a time when too many Americans and people in my own State of Vermont are sleeping out in the streets or in their cars, the VA has undertaken an aggressive and successful effort to significantly reduce the number of homeless veterans in…

We now understand that the cost of war includes significant care not only for those who lost their legs and their arms and their eyesight but for those who came home with what we now call the invisible wounds of war.

An insurance card is not worth very much if you cannot see your doctor.

The fastest, most cost-effective way of dealing with pollution or greenhouse gas emissions is to have less of them through energy efficiency.

Carbon pollution, greenhouse gases, are a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.

I do think man-made emissions contribute to global warming, yes.

President Obama has indicated that he would look forward to congressional action on climate.

Do you believe that global warming is real?

Is that something that you have heard and see as plausible?

I rise in support of the candidacy of Gina McCarthy to be our next EPA Administrator.

I do not think we have a Medicare or a Medicaid problem. We have a health care problem.

At the end of the day, the United States spends almost twice as much per capita on health care as any other major nation.

So is it a major concern to you that between 2009 and 2011 all--A-L-L--of the new income went to the top 1 percent?

And do you think that marketplace health care system might be one of the reasons we spend almost twice as much as any other country on health care, the role of private, for-profit health insurance companies?

Before we cut programs like Social Security or Medicare, do you not think it is a good idea that we look to corporate America for more tax revenue?

It seems to me those are all important initiatives, but you are missing one that is very important, and that is the issue of distribution of wealth and income in this country.