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Sanders Says The GOP's Health Care Plan Is An Abomination

by Celia Darrough
Alex Wong/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Before the new GOP health care plan was even voted on, Bernie Sanders railed against the American Health Care Act on both of his Twitter accounts, calling it an "abomination" and "disastrous" before going on to push for his fight for a single-payer system. UPDATE: The AHCA has officially passed the House with a majority of votes, 217 to 213.

"If one person loses their insurance because of the Republican health care plan, that's too many. But 24 million? That’s an abomination," Sanders wrote from his @SenSanders handle. "How can you call something 'health care reform' when millions of people lose their health insurance?" he added in another tweet. He even wrote directly to President Donald Trump, referencing one of Trump's tweets from 2014 in which Trump had written, "It's Thursday. How many people have lost their healthcare today?" regarding Obamacare.

"It's Thursday, Mr. President, and your party is trying to throw 24 million people off of health care today," Sanders tweeted. "Are you still concerned?"

Health care is a core issue for Sanders, who has long pushed for reforming the current system as well, but in the opposite way that Republicans wanted. Sanders wants a single-payer health care system, which would lessen the role of private insurance companies and put health care financing in the hands of a public agency. According to Physicians for a National Health Program, "The program would be funded by the savings obtained from replacing today’s inefficient, profit-oriented, multiple insurance payers with a single streamlined, nonprofit, public payer, and by modest new taxes based on ability to pay."

Sanders also pointed out the fact that the AHCA would bring back insurance companies' ability to discriminate based on a pre-existing condition, many of which disproportionately affect women. Not only are C-sections and postpartum depression considered pre-existing conditions, but sexual assault and domestic violence are as well.

"We are not going back to the days where being a woman was a pre-existing condition for which insurance companies could charge extra," Sanders tweeted.