Bernie Sanders for President

As both a private citizen and someone chosen by the people of the Village of Brookfield to serve in government, I want to talk about who I am and why I support Bernie Sanders for both the nomination of the Democratic Party and as the President of the United States.


I think there are many policy reasons to support Bernie, from how he approaches the student debt crisis to healthcare. However, for me what drives this is that he is the most human and genuine person to be this close to the presidency in a long time. I does take a certain kind of narcissism to put yourself up for any office, let alone the highest in the land. What it seems to me from watching the man since before he became a senator is that he is driven by the ideal of making the world a more fair and equitable place. The idea behind Bernie’s policies is that no one should be left to suffer, and that no one should be left behind. 

I do have a personal stake in this. I have been insured for a long time, but there was a time when I was not. During that time, I had several medical emergencies I had to make quick choices about. When I was hit by a car, I declined treatment from the EMTs because I could not afford an ambulance ride. When I was passing a kidney stone, instead of going to the hospital I went to google to see what I should do. When I cut my hand I did go into the hospital and the bills I received for some stitches were the equivalent of two months of take home pay for me. 


I do not want to live in a country where people have the sort of fear and uncertainty I had in those moments. I would happily be taxed more as we transition to a system where everyone is covered. We can do it. We cover less of our people and we still pay out twice the GDP in health expenditures as other OECD countries do. With that, we still have worse health outcomes. Bernie’s health care plan is the only one of the Democratic candidates’ plans that remove the profit motive where it sits at every level of the transactional health delivery system we have in America today. Other plans who try to make a rhetorical move where you can keep your plan if you like it enables predatory health insurance companies and every other intermediary you are not even aware of to still exist and to keep creaming off profits.


There is more to Bernie than health care. He understands that the world is accelerating in how fast carbon emissions are affecting global weather patterns and has embraced the Green New Deal. He understands that the accumulation of economic and political power is detrimental to the nation if it wants to keep calling itself a democracy. He has known this for years, and he has fought for it for years. I hope that when you vote in your primary as a Democrat, and in the fall as an American, you choose Bernie as your next president.