Bernie Sanders Floats 50-Percent Cut On Prescription Drugs If Elected

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) vowed on Saturday that if his 2020 bid for the presidency succeeds, he will slash prescription drug prices in half.

During a Sunday appearance on CBS Face the Nation, the senator told host Margaret Brennan she could hold him to it.

Let me make a campaign promise to you and you can repeat this, play this tape over if Im elected president and that is, if I am elected president, Im going to cut prescription drug costs in this country by 50 percent so that we are not paying any more than other major countries are paying, he said. Maybe we can do better than that.

During his 2016 run, Sanders campaigned on health care reform and Medicare for All as one of his primary proposals, and hes using the same playbook for 2020.

In January, Sanders and Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), along with others, introduced a three-bill package into Congress, including the Prescription Drug Price Relief Act, which aims to fulfill his 50-percent goal.

A press release on the proposal says it would ensure that when buying prescriptions, Americans are not charged more than the median price in Canada, the U.K., France, Germany and Japan.

The bill is currently sitting in the Senate.

Sanders also used his interview to hit back at President Donald Trump s attempt to strike down the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, for which there appears to be no viable alternative at this moment.

The senator predicted disaster, particularly if protections for preexisting conditions disappear.

That means if you have cancer, you have heart disease, you have diabetes if Trump gets his way, the cost of health insurance for you will be so high that many people literally will not be able to afford it, he said. Thousands of people will literally die. Thats Trumps health insurance plan.

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