Bernie Sanders

Thanks to the work of Senator Sanders' HELP Committee.

Thank you for your time, Senator Sanders.

We are going to do our best to grow the healthcare workforce and put a special focus on the need for more black doctors, nurses, psychologists, dentists, etcetera.

Health care is a human right, not a privilege.

Most importantly, I hope that what I and other Committee Members will learn from this hearing will be translated into law and will have an impact on how we provide health care to minority communities all across this country.

We are very grateful to HELP Committee Chairman Sanders, Ranking Member Cassidy, and all Members of the Committee for your interest in and focus on national health workforce challenges.

Thank you, Senator Sanders, for showing us continuously what leadership looks like, for being our voice when others are not listening.

You got to elect people who are going to stand up and fight for them, make a difference in their lives.

This is what we should be doing.

We have got to bring those people into the process.

We have got to do that in Texas. We have got to do that in many, many states in this country.

I would not be here as Chairman of the Committee if the people of Georgia had not done what they did.

You will say that you want to treat all the patients who walk at your door, not just those who have the money.

What we need to do is very simply. Create a health care system designed to provide quality, affordable health care to all as a human right.

The opposition there is enormous. The people who are making the money want to maintain the status quo.

Every American, child, elderly person should have quality health care.

The health care system today is working really good, for the insurance companies and for the drug companies.

We will be introducing legislation for a Medicare for all single payer program.

We spend twice as much per person on health care as any other country.

I hope that within the midst of the GME issue, we can deal with the issue of salaries for residents as well.

In Build Back Better, which was a major piece of legislation which would have dealt with many of the issues we are talking about here today, which lost by two votes, we substantially increased the number of GME slots, I think by about…

Thank you very much, Senator Sanders, for being here, and the panel who are here.

I think a lot of the programs need to build in--and even updating the capacity of minority serving institutions and HBCUs to talk about financial literacy with their students.

We should not have half a million people who are homeless.

Does anybody think it is vaguely sane that at a time when we desperately need more physicians, especially black and Latino physicians, that we are asking people to leave school, medical school, $300,000, $400,000 in debt?