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Feb. 8, 2017 - Louder with Crowder
01:56:18
EPIC BERNIE VS. TED CRUZ LIVESTREAM! (With Crowder and Friends)
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Time Text
Thank you.
Thank you.
Alright, glad to be with you in this very special live stream.
Producing in the in-video studio, as always, is Jared, who is not gay.
Follow him in...
Oh, we need to shut that TV monitor off.
I'm here...
Oh, you know what?
I'm hearing myself...
On my computer, producing with the in-video studio, as always, if this is not a real show...
It's not real.
...is Jared, who is not gay.
Follow him on Twitter at NotGayJarred, me at S. Crowder.
I fulfill my legal obligations to draw your own conclusions, and Gerald Morgan at G. Morgan Jr.
That's right, baby.
This is your first time in the studio.
That's right, yeah.
I feel...
Actually, it's not my first time in the studio, but, you know, in the studio.
Right.
Well, listen, we have tonight debate, Bernie Sanders versus Ted Cruz.
I'm looking forward to very much because I have not seen this yet.
We talked about this would be the purest form of debate.
We never got to see it in the primaries.
We never got to see it in the general election.
I always said, I want to see Ted Cruz versus Bernie Sanders.
It's only health care debate, but we have to go along tonight.
You thought we'd be done with the live streaming after presidential debates.
There's more.
There's more.
But wait, there's more.
AIDS. That's not on the table tonight to talk about, but that's always lurking behind the curtain.
I feel like you should have been up front about that.
So, is that program doing that, or is that just our TV monitor?
It keeps going black.
I think it's a TV monitor, I think.
Ah, you told me it was fixed.
You're fired.
Yeah, I may have lied.
So, beverages of choice tonight.
We have a drinking game.
Yes.
Bring up the drinking game, not gay, Jared, for people who don't know the rules.
Okay, you have to take a drink every time Bernie Sanders uses the word free access.
Don't pour that yet.
That's the hero shot.
Affordable.
You need to read this.
Wall Street.
You need to read this correctly.
Or if he says fair share.
You're not reading this correctly.
You have to read it as...
I can't.
My voice is shot.
People saw the Facebook live stream.
They can hear me right now.
I sound like Lindsay Lohan after an all-night bender with a lesbian DJ. You have to drink if Ted Cruz ever smiles uncomfortably.
Right away alcohol poisoning.
Starts a sentence or rebuttal with, well, says the words radical Islamic terrorism or freedom, or if he tells a personal story.
So, everybody, beverages up.
I sure hope you're using the vessel of choice.
The only one that will do.
I'm going to switch cameras here.
Look at this.
Look at that.
That is a perfect head.
Oh, hey, before we go to it, they're going to be streaming really quickly.
We have our own special guest tonight.
We haven't had him on the show in a while.
There you go.
Cheers.
By the end of tonight, I will hate you.
I will despise you.
That's actually pretty good.
A little coffee beer.
Not bad.
A special guest.
Jean-Guy Tremblay.
We haven't had him on in a while.
His journey for Bernie went viral.
He's a documentarian from Canada.
Jean-Guy will be checking in with you.
Are you there, sir?
Are you there?
Jean-Guy, are you there?
Is Jean-Guy there?
I don't think we're there.
He's got some funny Wi-Fi connection out there.
Jean-Guy's not there.
Let's see.
Hey, yeah, man.
Oh, he's there.
Glad to be there.
You know, my journey for Bernie is not finished at election.
You know, we can't forget the issue that matters.
So I'm ready to go and ready to watch that guy wash, use as like a broom on the floor with that guy, Ted Cruz, you know?
I don't know what that means.
I don't think...
Hey, Jean-Guy, I'm glad you came up, but I don't know what...
I don't think...
I don't know what you mean, use a broom on the floor.
Hey man, you know, that's not my first language.
Mop, I think that's for that one.
Oh, mop the floor with him.
Yeah, I know the rule, you know, you don't have to tell me two times.
Hey man, politic or no politic, that Labatt is going to be there anyway, you know.
Oh, so he'll be taking part in the drinking game, I assume.
Well, look, there he is already.
Just going for it.
All right, we need to bring up the stream.
Jared, you looking forward to this?
Yeah, man.
You seem scared.
I'm excited.
I appreciate you bringing me back when you can have beer on this side.
You don't seem very grateful.
For that, I throw a bottle cap at you.
Oh, I could have caught that if you're a good quarterback.
Tom Brady, you are not.
No, I'm not.
I'm more like the Falcons!
Let's bring this up.
Okay, there they are.
They're showing them crazy.
So tweet us.
What do you expect to see tonight?
I expect to see Ted Cruz laser in and Bernie Sanders promise free stuff and scream out words like socialism.
So let me see this.
Please take your positions behind the podiums.
All right.
Now, before your opening statements, I want to talk about the ground rules that you both agreed to.
You will get 90 seconds to answer questions posed to you, 45 seconds for responses and rebuttals.
Timing lights will guide you.
As we mentioned, a handful of members of our audience, which include both critics and defenders of the Affordable Care Act, will question you in addition to questions from Jake and myself.
As moderators, we will guide the debate.
And we will begin with two-minute opening statements on what should happen to health care in America.
Senator Sanders.
Let me begin by thanking CNN for sponsoring this debate, and let me thank all of those who are watching.
Let me get right to the point.
Senator Cruz, like most Republicans, has said that he wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or so-called Obamacare.
Let me tell you what that will mean to the American people.
It means that if you are one of 20 million Americans who finally has received health insurance, forget about it.
You're gone.
You're off health insurance.
And that means when you get sick, you ain't going to be able to go to the doctor.
And when you end up in the hospital, you'll be paying those bills for the rest of your life, or maybe you'll go bankrupt.
What the repeal of the ACA means that if you are one of 10 million senior citizens who today is struggling with the outrageous cost of prescription drugs, your prescription drug costs are going to go on average about $2,000.
What the repeal of the ACA means is that if you are suffering with cancer, with diabetes, With serious mental illness, you will be put into a position where you may be rejected from any insurance at all because you have a preexisting condition.
And by the way, women are considered a preexisting condition.
Conditioned by the insurance companies because they might have a baby.
He's hitting all the high notes here, isn't he?
He really is.
Is the ACA perfect?
Nobody believes that it is, and nobody believes that we do not need to improve it.
But the debate is whether we kill it entirely or we make improvements in it.
And I will tell you, overwhelming majority of the American people say, do not simply repeal the ACA, make improvements.
Last point.
The United States is the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all people as a right.
I believe we should move in that direction.
The ACA has been a step forward.
We have got to go further and join every other major country on earth and say that if you are an American, you are guaranteed health care.
We don't have to pay for any national defense!
Thank you, Senator Sanders.
Senator Cruz, what should happen with health care in America?
Well, Dan, I think...
Thank you.
Thank you guys for hosting this.
Thank you for Bernie for joining this.
And thank you to CNN for hosting this.
We have debates that are sound bites that are 60 seconds or 90 seconds on a topic.
And I appreciate CNN devoting real time to this issue because it matters.
Health care is personal in a way that is different from most other political issues.
Health care affects our families.
It's our moms.
Health care is our kids.
It's the future.
It can quite literally be whether we live or not.
Edward the sound guy has a bottle of red wine.
And this is an issue where Bernie Sanders and I have fundamentally different approaches.
Fundamentally should have been on the list.
Bernie and the Democrats want government to control health care.
I trust you.
And I trust your doctors.
I think healthcare works better when you're in charge of your family's healthcare decisions, when you can sit down with your doctor and decide the care that's best for your family without government setting rules, without government rationing, without wait periods.
And that's the fundamental divide we're having.
You know, six years ago when Obamacare was being adopted, it's possible that reasonable minds could have differed on whether this was a good idea.
But six years into it, we've seen the results.
We remember Obamacare.
A series of promises were made to us by President Obama.
Number one, most infamously, if you like your plan, you can keep your plan.
President Obama said that 37 different times.
As six million people across this country discovered that was not true when they had their plans canceled against their wishes.
If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.
Again, millions discovered that wasn't true.
And President Obama promised the American people the average family's premiums would drop $2,500.
Not only wasn't that true, but the average family's premiums have risen $5,000.
That's why people are unhappy with this disaster of a law, because it's driven up the cost of health care.
It's reduced your choice.
It's reduced your freedom.
But didn't we say choice, freedom?
And this election was a referendum on Obamacare, and the American people quite rightly decided this plan didn't work.
Senator Cruz, thank you so much.
We have a lot of questions for both of you from members of the audience, but before we get to them, I want to ask about a pressing matter on Capitol Hill, and I'll start with you, Senator Cruz.
House Speaker Paul Ryan said today that the legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare would be done this year.
On Sunday, President Trump said that a plan may not be rolled out until 2018.
Not that it would, but that it may not be rolled out until 2018.
Is anything less than a full and swift repeal and replacement of Obamacare a broken promise?
Listen, I think everyone agrees there is an urgency to honor the promises we made.
You know, since Obamacare was passed, we've had multiple elections, 2010, 2014, 2016.
Where the number one issue in each of those elections was Obamacare.
And, you know, what we're arguing here was argued in front of the American people.
The Democrats said over and over again, if Obamacare is here, all of these people are going to vote.
I'm in for a rough night, guys.
We're going to get into that.
We're very sorry.
That was the argument that was made to the American people.
Did he skip 2012, by the way?
2010, 2014, 2016.
I believe we're a mandate from the voters.
They said we're tired of premiums going up.
We're tired of deductibles going up.
We're tired of losing our doctors of less choices.
So yes, should Congress move swiftly to repeal Obamacare?
That's borderline.
Nobody thinks we're done once Obamacare is repealed.
Once Obamacare is repealed, we need common sense reform that increases competition, that empowers patients, that gives you more choices, that puts you in charge of your health care rather than empowering government bureaucrats to get in the way.
And these have been common sense ideas, I would note, that for six years Republicans have been proposing.
And for six years Democrats have been fighting, saying no changes at all to Obamacare, even as people were hurting And losing their coverage.
This election is about honoring the promises we made to the people who...
Senator Sanders?
Well, the truth is that the Republicans are now in a panic.
Yes.
Because clearly, their back's against the wall, Bernie.
The absolute repeal...
I've got them right where I want them!
Without improvements in it, without a plan to make it better, would be an absolute disaster.
So when Ted talks about giving people choice, here's your choice.
You got cancer and you go to the doctor and the insurance company says we're not going to cover it.
We can't make money on you because you have cancer.
You have a pre-existing condition.
Yes.
And here's another choice you can have.
If you have diabetes and you are spending a whole lot on health insurance, the insurance companies will say, sorry, we're only going to spend X dollars because we've got to make money off you.
That's the function of private insurance.
Do you hear what he just did?
He just vilified the entire business model for which insurance companies exist.
They exist in order to take risks, to take calculated risks.
So can you believe it?
If you go in and you're eating fried Snickers and Oreos, the insurance company won't cover you!
Yes, Bernie.
Just like they shouldn't cover you because you're mentally insane.
I wouldn't cover your Prozac.
Before we had the Affordable Care Act.
You know, it is interesting to hear so much of the Democratic rhetoric that government controlling your health care is always justified by saying the insurance companies are terrible.
Now, this is an example of what John Adams famously said.
Facts are stubborn things.
Let's talk about some facts.
In 2008, the ten largest insurance companies in America made just over $8 billion profit.
In 2016, 2015 rather, those same 10 largest companies made $15 billion in profit.
Insurance company profits have doubled under Obamacare.
That was the result.
Bernie helped write Obamacare.
That's an important point, too.
Bernie vilifies the business of insurance companies, but Obamacare basically forced people to buy private insurance.
Yes.
They couldn't deny for pre-existing conditions, but there were no caps on premiums or deductibles.
So it really was a way for them to sort of weasel in and act like they were working on behalf of the little guy, as they've always claimed, and the little guy voted for Donald Trump in response, while providing a big kickback to insurance companies, who, by and large, favored Democrats that election cycle.
And you know who's making out like gangbusters?
The insurance companies and those in government whose solution is let's have even more government control.
This thing isn't working.
You know, here I find myself in agreement with Ted.
The function of insurance companies is not to provide quality health care to all people to make as much money as they possibly can.
Ted, let's work together on a Medicare for All single-payer program.
So we're finally going to get...
See, in his circles when he showed up to Black Lives Matter in college bong circles, this kind of argument is considered...
We are the only major country on earth that allows private insurance companies to run the system.
But it's not only the points that Ted made about the insurance companies.
We're also the only country that invents the largest portion of drugs that come to market.
It's not even close.
We cured things.
We invent things.
It happens.
We cured so anything that there were super bacteria that developed other things!
Ted, let's work together.
We're going to get those insurance companies out of healthcare.
We'll move to a Medicare for All healthcare program.
He's a smart ass.
He's kind of a little bitch when he gets upset.
I would love to respond.
You're not going to support that.
Well, actually, what I still will say, Bernie, is I would love for us to work together going after big pharma.
And in particular, taking on the FDA. Right now, it takes $2 billion to approve a new drug.
Now, I've introduced legislation to reform the FDA process so that new health care, so that we can be curing diseases and we can be helping people.
But we should probably check in with Jean-Guy.
Jean-Guy, are you there, sir?
Are you watching thus far?
Amen!
I'm doing okay.
My boy is doing good.
I don't know about that.
That's a real party.
Okay, Shang-Gi.
Shang-Gi.
He's having a good time.
This is going to end well for him.
Taking on Pharma.
Which is the greediest of many greedy corporate interests in Washington.
And I'll tell you what, I'm going to introduce legislation to have Medicare negotiate prices with the pharmaceutical industry.
I'm going to introduce again legislation.
To allow Americans to buy less expensive medicine in Canada, the UK, and other countries.
Let's take on the greed of pharma, substantially lower prescription drug costs.
And Dan, let me make a response to this, because this is a good discussion.
The whole point of having an extended discussion is to say, as you know, with drug reimportation, bringing in drugs from Canada and other countries, just a couple of weeks ago on the Senate floor, I voted with you.
You voted for my amendment.
In support of that, in support of allowing drug reimportation.
You voted for my amendment.
It was the right thing to do, but I'll tell you, a much bigger barrier than that is the fact that, you know, in the last 20 years, the FDA has approved only three child cancer drugs in 20 years.
Because the burdens are so great.
I introduced legislation that said if a drug is approved in another major country, if it's approved in Europe or Japan or our major respected partners, that the FDA has got 30 days to approve it here.
We shouldn't be telling people with life-threatening diseases you can't do everything you can to save your lives.
That would be a great thing.
We'd make news if you and I joined up on that.
But that is not the major problem.
The major problem with the pharmaceutical industry is, you know what?
They could double or triple the prices you pay.
There we go, yes.
Have you been here this whole time?
So good to see you.
We do want to talk more about that later, but I want to get to some of the questions from our audience.
One of the most popular parts of Obamacare is, as you mentioned earlier, requiring insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions.
If Obamacare is repealed, 52 million Americans could lose that guaranteed coverage because of their medical histories.
One of them is Neosha Ponder, who is fighting breast cancer and currently undergoing radiation treatment.
Oh, God, I know.
Norwegian again.
To ensure the provisions are in place so that half of my paycheck won't be spent on health care.
I didn't ask for cancer.
I never smoked.
I never drank a lot.
I've lived a pretty healthy lifestyle.
I fear that if I don't have Obamacare, if I'm not covered, then my pre-existing condition of breast cancer and remaining treatments will make it difficult for me to afford insurance.
Senator Cruz, what can you do to protect people like me who are alive because of Obamacare?
Well, Neil, thank you for asking that question.
How long have you been diagnosed with breast cancer?
I was diagnosed on April 25, 2016.
Wow.
Well, you're doing great.
You know, our prayers are with you.
I'll tell you, my mom had breast cancer.
And my mom was diagnosed in 2000.
election night.
...as she went through two surgeries.
I don't have any beer.
Gerald, do your job.
I'm working on it.
...later.
Thank God she is a survivor.
And I will tell you, our medical innovation has been incredible dealing with breast cancer.
So all of us, our prayers and thoughts are with you.
Thank you.
You know, you asked about people who get sick and not wanting your insurance canceled, not wanting your premiums to go up.
That's absolutely right.
That is absolutely right.
And if you look at every proposal that's been submitted, every significant proposal that's been submitted to replace Obamacare, to fix the problems in the health care system after Obamacare has gotten rid of, all of them protect people in your situations.
All of them prohibit insurance companies from canceling someone because they got sick.
They prohibit insurance companies from jacking up the insurance rate because they got sick or injured.
This is uninteresting with Loeys shit.
There you go.
Look, it pours this can.
It's the whole can.
Look, it's the old whole can.
How fun is that?
I've never even seen it before.
It's even enhanced by the mug club.
It enhances everything, this mug club.
I think it's for alcoholics who want to drink beer faster.
I think that's the invention there.
Just hook it to my veins!
Yeah, pretty much.
Senator Sanders' response?
I cannot believe what you just said.
It's a direct contradiction to everything you ran for president on.
What Ted has said is he wants to get rid of all federal mandates.
Did you say that a hundred times?
I didn't say it once.
I will...
Get rid of every word of Obamacare.
Excuse me.
The only way that we are going to make sure...
Before this debate, he was in the green room with a voodoo doll and pins!
I don't even know how I got here!
I came in playing Pokemon Go!
Is to make sure that no...
Where the fucking pig?
...can say no to you or to anybody else.
Now, Ted thinks that's a terrible government intrusion.
I chose tonight.
I should have known better.
to do.
So when you hear Ted and other Republicans say, we're going to get rid of all of Obama, we're going to leave it to the states.
Well, what do you think the states are going to do?
You think they're going to maintain the ability to protect people with pre-existing conditions?
You mean the risk pool that Texas had to take care of everybody like her in that situation?
That's what we would have done?
It would have been perfect, actually, if you do that.
Could you just clarify?
Will you support anything that doesn't mandate people with pre-existing conditions continue to have coverage?
Look, my response, as I said hundreds of times on the campaign trail, yes, we should repeal every word of Obamacare.
But if you listen to the next sentence, I always said, we're not done yet with health care reform, and we do that.
We need health care reform and the principles of health care reform.
They should expand competition.
They should empower patients.
And they should keep government from getting between you and your doctor.
I talked about all sorts of common sense ideas to do just that.
And as I said, a proposal that is consistent in virtually every one of the pieces of Republican legislation that's been filed is a prohibition on insurance companies canceling people because they got sick.
And, you know, Bernie, it's easy to say to people, gosh, you're going to lose your coverage.
What do the Democrats say?
To the six million people who had their health insurance canceled...
Wait, wait, wait.
Thank you, sir.
Every cartoon who sees a really attractive other girl cartoon...
What happens if tomorrow you wake up and you go to the doctor and you discover that you have cancer?
All right?
You just discovered it.
And the insurance companies say, hey, you're not a good deal for us.
We can't make money off of you.
You will not get that health insurance.
So I think when people like Ted talk about repealing Obamacare, repealing government mandates, this is a government mandate, and it is a damn good mandate and a humane mandate.
And, Senator Cruz, if you would answer now...
I want you to argue the constitutionality of a mandate.
You're saying that she will continue to have health care, she and others, who have pre-existing conditions, and you're going to make sure that that is a mandate and a requirement in whatever legislation we support?
What I've said is virtually all of the Republican legislation that has been filed that the Democrats have opposed.
It maintains a continuity of coverage so that insurance companies can't cancel policies.
And, you know, the question I asked a minute ago that Bernie chose not to answer is, what do the Democrats say to the six million people who had their insurance policies canceled, who got a notification in the mail that you don't get to see your doctors anymore, and not just the people who were canceled?
There are people all over this country who can't afford health insurance because of Obamacare, who the deductibles are so high, the premiums are so high, they say, you know what, my family, we can't make it on this.
Personal story.
And, you know, you talk about the people covered by Obamacare.
Here's something most people don't know.
Smile uncomfortably.
Most of the people covered by Obamacare are on Medicaid.
They jammed a bunch more people in Medicaid.
I'll tell you what happens.
People on Medicaid had markedly worse health outcomes than people with private insurance.
I'd like to see a lot more people on private insurance.
Wait, wait, you're speaking truth.
Let's go.
Cut to Bernie.
But it's relevant.
He's saying people are going to lose their health care.
If you want health care, we want as many people as possible to be able to afford insurance policies that protect you when you get sick.
Bernie's entire role here is to simply take from a less oppressed class to give to an oppressed class, which is typically a minority.
That's what it is.
He doesn't consider the fact that what about everyone else who has to pay two, three times the price for their premiums?
They don't matter because they're moderately successful.
That is what Ted said.
But he also said, if you have an illness, it has to be kept.
But really, we are moving into an era where millions of people who develop terrible illnesses will not be able to get insurance, and God only knows how many of them will die.
So, Senator Sanders, you just heard Senator Cruz bring up an issue that a lot of Americans...
By the way, I also think Donald Trump said he was going to keep the pre-existing clause, which is silly and it doesn't work, but he did say that, so it's kind of a moot point.
...so that their insurance is unaffordable.
One of them is in our audience right now.
Her name is Melissa Borkowski.
She's a nurse practitioner from Florida.
She's a mother of four.
She and her husband are paying more than $1,000 a month to insure their family for a plan with a $13,000 deductible.
Melissa?
Is she going to give us the spiel about healthy lifestyle here?
Good evening, Senators.
Thank you for your time.
As he said, I'm a nurse practitioner.
I've worked in healthcare for over 25 years now.
But under Obamacare, I'm not able to get the health services I need for myself or my family.
Last year, I had a very abnormal pap smear and needed additional...
Can we add pap smear?
Pap smear?
I'm drinking.
Either way, I'm drinking.
So I wasn't able to afford to get those tests done.
So now I sit here wondering if I have an undiagnosed cancer.
And that will eventually take me away from my four children.
Who says I want to go on national TV? My plan premiums plus deductible cost over $25,000 for the year.
And it covers little more than basic preventative services.
Senator Sanders, my question is...
Thank you for opening up about your smear of pap.
...to pay so much money for an insurance plan that is essentially useless.
I understand that not all smears of pap are equal.
Melissa.
You ask a great question, and the answer is, it is totally absurd.
It is totally absurd.
It should be free.
I will personally conduct your next sphere of power in my Senate chambers.
Cut off.
The real question, which is never talked about, or very rarely talked about, is why we end up spending, as a nation, Twice as much per capita on healthcare as do the people of any other country.
If you're in Canada, you know what?
You would get the healthcare that you need.
No, you would just die, actually.
If you were in the UK, France, Germany, Scandinavia, you would get the healthcare you need.
You would get ripped by a towel head, but then you would get the...
The idea that we have policies like that, like the one you described, is clearly an outrage and should tell every American...
Your plan did it.
Your plan made it happen.
And it's an outrage.
Your $13,000 deductible, which didn't exist prior to Obamacare for most people.
Thank you very much, Bernie.
Senator Cruz?
You know, Melissa, I'm sorry for the challenges you're facing.
There are many people in America struggling with exactly what you are in the wreckage of Obamacare, with skyrocketing premiums, with deductibles that are unaffordable, and with really limited care.
And I will commend Bernie for his candor.
I mean, his view all along was that we need government-run and government-controlled health care for everyone.
And indeed, as he said here tonight, he thinks other countries do it a lot better than America.
He often points to Canada, the United Kingdom.
He says, why do we pay more?
Well, there's a reason we pay more than those countries.
We get a lot more and a lot better health care.
Let me give you some basic facts.
As I noticed in all the Democratic primary debates, there was no discussion of the facts on the other side.
Which is not true.
The United States, population controlled, delivers three times as many mammograms as Europe.
Two and a half times the number of MRI scans and 31% more C-sections.
We provide more health care, not only that.
Zero through Planned Parenthood, by the way.
In the United Kingdom, for example, wait times.
In 2013, you waited 72 days for cataract surgery.
You waited 89 days for hip replacement, 95 days for knee replacement.
There are 3.7 million people in the United Kingdom right now on a waiting list.
Whenever you put government in charge of health care, what it means is they ration, they decide, you get care and you don't.
I don't think the government has any business telling you you're not entitled to receive health care.
He may seem stiff, he may seem staccato, but he just brought a litany of facts and statistics, and then Bernie will say, I don't think they have the right to deny you.
It's a human right.
Watch.
...empower you and put you back in charge of your health care.
Senator Cruz, thank you.
Senator Sanders, let me ask you, just as part of Melissa's question...
Bernie, can you go back to your podium?
...through Obamacare, through the insurance exchange, there was a nearly 25% decline in the number of insurers.
They're not looking.
There are five states that only have one insurer providing insurance on the exchange.
He's like crazy.
Have both choice and manageable costs.
Too many words.
Get back to Melissa.
There we go.
The emotional deal.
Drake.
Drake, he was predictable.
You said it was a rule.
True.
Ted talks about the problems that exist in other countries in terms of waiting lines.
He talks about rationing.
We have enormous rationing in this country.
Wait, really?
When you have 28 million people who have no health insurance, that's rationing.
When you have people who can't afford to go to the doctor or can't afford to buy prescription drugs.
One out of five Americans can't afford the prescription drugs that doctors prescribe.
That's called rationing.
Except there's no rule on that.
There's no war on that.
It's just people don't have the money to buy what they need.
In terms of health care.
To answer your question, Jake, what I have long supported within the context of Obamacare as we move toward a Medicare for All single-pay program is a public option.
There should be a Medicare-type public option available in all exchanges in all states in this country.
And I think that would substantially lower the cost Of health care in this country and provide real competition to the private sector.
See, Ted Cruz said this debt, this debt, this debt, these premiums, and he's saying, I believe if we do this, that would maybe.
He's dealing with phantom fears and phantom theories.
That is socialism versus free enterprise.
I love this debate.
Well, and we're talking about health insurance, not health care.
Let's make sure we understand that.
Good point, Gerald.
Health insurance plans, that's it.
Oh, he brought a prop.
He brought a map of Sprint.
The coverage is within 1%.
It's really quite striking that the communities that have been hammered by this disaster of a law said enough already.
Now, Bernie likes talking about a public option.
That's another way of saying government control of your health care.
It's socialized medicine.
And what does it mean?
Every country where it's been applied, you've seen rationing, you've seen government deciding, especially seniors.
Seniors, you don't get the health care you need.
Now, Bernie mentions Canada quite a bit.
I know quite a bit about Canadian health care.
I was born there.
You know, Bernie, that may be the best argument against your position.
Because people are going to look at Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders and say, I want to look like the guy on the left.
There is a picture of health.
He's softening himself up a little bit to the audience.
I'm reminded of a comment Ronald Reagan used to say about East Berlin, about the Berlin Wall.
He said, the funny thing the leftists never seem to notice, the machine guns all point one direction.
Everyone was fleeing communism and coming to freedom.
If you look at socialized medicine, people leave their tens and hundreds of thousands every year, leave socialized medicine countries because they want to get a hip replacement, a knee replacement.
You know, the governor of one of the Canadian provinces came to America to get heart surgery, and he was a governor in Canada.
And by the way, in your home state of Vermont, your hospitals advertise with Canadian flags.
Come to American hospitals, you'll get better health care.
I don't want to mess up our health care.
I want patients, all of us, to be in charge of our health care, not government deciding what health care is.
Bernie Sanders can't close his mouth.
Look at that.
He looks like he's trying to, like, find out time to pass a kidney stone later.
As you well know...
It's okay.
It's okay.
I drank some Mountain Dew earlier.
I don't think we need to see those countries junking their healthcare systems, in which, by the way, poll after poll shows, not that they don't have problems.
Of course they have problems.
Every healthcare system in the world has problems.
But I am not seeing those countries junking their universal healthcare system, which provide healthcare to all of their people at one-half times.
The cost per capita.
What did I tell you?
I don't see conservative prime ministers doing that to go to the American healthcare system.
Our system is wasteful.
It is dysfunctional.
It is incredibly bureaucratic.
Yes, it is.
The health insurance system.
He thinks he's so wrong.
The people may not be complaining because they're getting free things, but the governments are being forced to move toward a more privatized plan, as Canada did.
In the Supreme Court's case, we've talked about it.
They're moving our way while Bernie wants us to move their way.
They've already run out of money.
They're done.
And Bernie never talks about it.
There are 11,000 people watching this right now.
What are you doing on Tuesday night?
What are you doing?
What are you doing?
That's great.
Let's just insult our entire audience.
Oh, there's 7,000 now.
Weird.
Come back.
Those watching, tweet me.
What are you drinking this evening?
We had Shiner and we had a Four Corners local buzz.
So let's talk about, for example, Wait, you were supposed to bring notes?
Bernie's matching a move for move.
He goes to the podium, I go to the podium.
It turned away three women who were in labor Because they couldn't take care of him.
In Worcester, England, a man was left on an ambulance gurney for five hours.
Did he just laugh?
Did it sound like he was laughing when he said that?
A little bit.
And he waited seven hours before he received a stannin angioplasty.
Someone on AR-15 2PO says, is Bernie part of the garage people?
Life-saving surgery for a patient with esophageal cancer because there were no free beds in the intensive care unit.
One more example in Wales.
An 82-year-old woman who had fallen waited eight hours on the floor before an ambulance arrived.
Her daughter sat beside her in the ordeal, described it as one of the longest nights of our life.
This is what happened when government takes over health care.
Every example on earth.
The result is rationing and waiting periods, and you, the citizens, being told, no, you can't have the health care you want.
I'm drinking whiskey, Nicole Christie says.
Juice says.
Aaron, saltfist says drinking Elysium split shot.
No TV, thanks for streaming.
You're welcome.
We should be proud of that.
But if you are working class...
You're going to be having a very difficult time affording the outrageous cost of health care.
That's what Melissa just told us a moment ago.
Now, estimate's different, but let's be clear about this.
Every single year, tens of thousands of our fellow Americans die because they don't go to the doctor when they should.
I'm doing okay.
My guy is, you know, he's Bernie.
He's doing good, you know.
I feel strong, fucked.
I feel fresh.
Good.
Okay, we'll check back with you.
The only honest man on the side of Bernie Sanders.
Let's go back to Bernie.
We just heard that story a moment ago.
And some of those people die, and others end up in the hospital at outrageous costs for illnesses that could have been treated initially at far less cost.
So please don't tell me about rationing.
This country has more rationing than any other industrialized country.
You made no point to that at all.
Except the rationing is done by...
We're going to take a very quick break.
The debate will continue right after this with Senators Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders.
Stay with us.
Okay, so let's do a scorecard here.
We can turn on the air for a bit, right?
How much is that going to mess up the sound?
Let's turn on the air here.
It's too hot in the studio.
If you hear a little bit of buzzing, it's the air.
I like sweating.
Or Jared pissing himself.
He does a very low tolerance.
Hey, Sound Guy Edward, make sure the temperature is below the room temperature.
Okay.
He never knows.
He'll turn on the air and it's 75 in the room and he sits at the 78.
Thank you for all of your tweets.
We have a scorecard.
Genuinely, if you're looking at this as an objective observer, who's getting better at this?
Ted Cruz.
But again, you're making emotional arguments to people who respond very well to emotional arguments.
I think the people who like Bernie are still going to like Bernie because they don't care about the facts or statistics.
I mean, they supported his economic plan.
They have a very casual relationship with stats and statistics, okay?
They don't really want good healthcare.
They just want an insurance plan that says, I can go and live my life, eat what I want, never exercise, make really bad decisions, and then one day, poof, I'm in bad shape and I need your help.
How about the people that do take care of themselves and spend time, effort, and money getting checkups and doing all kinds of stuff?
By the way, tons of that stuff is free.
It doesn't cost you a thing.
By the way, also, those people are the ones much more likely to see as far as a comparative increase in their premiums.
Because the people who are healthy, people who take care of themselves...
This guy, right here.
You're right there with Letitia.
Thank you.
Watch, Gerald will be the next time in the hall.
I keep myself very healthy.
I do not eat whiskey cake, Gerald.
Wait, no, that's not true.
It is.
We split it, and now you split in the loosest sense of the word.
I looked down.
I was like, how did that happen?
So I think that is important.
People need to realize that the people who do take care of themselves, the people who you actually want insurance companies betting on, they're the ones more likely to have to pay more and dropping out.
Yes.
You know, the person who's most likely to drop out of insurance right now...
A, it's really hard now because the government's going to penalize you at gunpoint.
But the person most likely to drop out is that college student who's an athlete, who's super fit, who's super healthy, who did all these things to try and bring their insurance premiums down and instead saw them go up.
And that's the exact kind of person you need in the healthcare insurance risk pool to mitigate it for the person with the smear of pap.
Oh, man.
You want me in your insurance pool.
You really do.
I'm the ringer.
I would prefer thank you.
Yes, I'm paying for you to have these surgeries and pap smears that go awry, apparently, and now you want me to pay more.
I'm okay paying a little bit more, right?
I'm okay helping make sure there's a backstop.
But that's not what he's talking about.
We had that already.
We had the backstop in Texas for sure, right?
The big risk pool.
If you had a pre-existing condition, you went there.
You know how I know that?
I went there.
I had back surgery.
And it was not the end of the world.
My premium went up like 50 bucks.
On top of that, yeah.
Had $115,000 back surgery.
Ended up out of pocket zero.
You went there after your back surgery?
Well, I had to sign a rider so that my back was never covered again.
So that was an option.
I ended up finally getting on.
So they covered it that one time?
Well, they covered it for, I believe, two years under that rider.
And then never again?
But after that, I'm good.
Now I can go get insurance with anybody and it doesn't come up.
But how do they make money if you have $115,000 back surgery?
Well, they lost on that one.
They got a little screwed.
What do you want me to say?
But the thing is, personally, my income was not affected because I had AFLAC, had a health savings account that was fully funded.
Geez, I think I was being a little bit responsible.
And then I also had short-term disability insurance.
It is possible.
Thank you.
Short term, yes.
You've only had one beer, and that's not fair.
No, that's not true at all.
Jared, you haven't even opened a second.
I'm working on it.
Everyone's been calling you on not drinking when you're supposed to.
Do you think Bernie passed the kidney stone on the break?
I think it's in a jar underneath that podium.
I want to show you something.
That was Bernie?
Work on it.
Alright, we're back.
Let's go back.
Let's bring up a song.
I'm Jake Tepper.
I have to poop.
Hello.
Under the controls of Obamacare, my business has been restricted from expansion.
I'm from Fort Worth, Texas.
I own five Fantastic Sam's Hair salons.
We employ between 45 and 48 employees.
My original plan was to open more salons and employ more people.
However, under Obamacare, I am restricted Because it requires me to furnish health insurance if I employ more than 50 people.
Unfortunately, the profit margin in my industry is very thin, and I'm not a wealthy person, so it's impossible for me to grow my business.
My question to you, Senator Sanders, is how do I grow my business?
How do I employ more Americans without either raising the prices to my customers or lowering wages to my employees?
Like the vultures in the jungle book.
La Ronda.
La Ronda.
You own five...
That's correct.
And you employ close to 50 people?
Just under.
And what kind of health insurance do you provide to them?
Zero.
None.
You provide no health insurance to them?
Correct.
Let me give you an answer you will not be happy with.
And that is, I think, that for businesses that employ 50 people or more, given the nature of our dysfunctional health care system right now, where most people do get their health insurance through the places that they work.
I'm sorry.
I think that in America today, everybody should have health care.
And if you have more than 50 people, you know what?
I think I'm afraid to tell you...
You piece of shit!
You piece of shit!
You have three houses, one that's only 40 minutes from the other one up on Lake Champlain.
You piece of shit!
You don't even ask her about her profit margins.
You don't even ask her how many people she employs, how many of them are part-time, how many of them have been forced onto working part-time because of Obamacare, because of the current laws that force small businesses.
Again, 50 people is not a lot at all.
You piece of shit!
And this is so clear right now.
When he tries to say, we're talking about the multi-billion dollar corporations, we're talking about the big people.
This woman probably barely earns a six-figure income if that.
I wouldn't be surprised if most years she makes less than those 50 employees that she's talking about.
You piece of shit.
Everyone watching this show right now knows somebody who probably has a business on that scale of size when Bernie Sanders says, forevermore...
That he's only going after the top 1% right here.
He's going after women like that.
He is not a nice guy.
He is buying your vote.
He is a walking, talking, bumbling piece of human shit.
What's the drink to that?
Cheers.
Thomas said it's the same thing Democrats have said, which is that you, the small business, you're apparently a bad actor because you're not allowed to manufacture money.
Yeah, it was true.
You know, let me introduce you all to two terms that have become really common.
29ers and 49ers.
29ers are the millions of people across this country that have been forced into part-time work, that used to have full-time employment, and are now working 29 hours a week because Obamacare kicks in at 30 hours a week.
And a lot of them are people, they're single moms, they're teenagers, they're immigrants, they're people who are struggling, and then 49ers.
There are millions of small businesses in the exact situation you're in.
You know, a couple of months ago, I was out in West Texas, was visiting a dairy farmer, driving around the dairy farm.
Now listen to this, and you tell me who's populous.
You tell me he's looking out for the elite.
Bernie Sanders telling a small business owner that you have to pay for everybody else's health insurance period because I have a mandate and I have a pen sitting there from Washington, D.C. Or Ted Cruz right now who's talking about giving businesses and employees the freedom of choice.
Because Obamacare kicks in at 50 and he said, I could hire 20 or 30 more employees right now.
But Obamacare would bankrupt my business, and that's millions of small businesses.
So we're here at GW. Let me speak for a minute to all the young people.
That was a personal story, by the way.
When you come out of college with way too much student loans, my guess is you'd like to get a job.
And millions of small businesses being told by the Democrats, tough luck, we don't care if it drives you out of business, that's taken away opportunity, and it's hurting, in particular, the most vulnerable.
It's one of the most damaging things about Obamacare.
Senator Sanders?
LaRonda, let me ask you a question.
What happens if one of your employees becomes ill?
What happens?
What happens if one of your employees, as happens in every part of the country, Because diabetes gets cancer.
It's her fault, for sure.
What do they do if they don't have any health insurance?
That's what he's saying.
You're right.
I'm sorry.
I've been converted.
Because the premiums have gone up so much this year, and because I don't qualify for any kind of government subsidies, I don't have, for the first time in my life, insurance.
It's just not affordable.
Unfortunately, the prices of my services just don't work.
She's part of the 1%.
She can't even afford insurance.
And Bernie just vilified her.
Now he's going to tell her he's going to give a free shit.
It is absolutely true that the cost of the premiums are going up.
No argument.
They went up even higher during the period of George W. Bush.
Oh, come on.
That's not verifiably false.
It's verifiably false.
You just pulled a Trump.
I hate to say it.
Snopes to cover that.
There are fewer part-time employees today than there were before.
That's right.
There are other jobs, actually.
Thank you for pointing that out.
The bottom line is, with the situation you described, it's honestly absurd.
You should not be going around without health insurance.
Your employees should not be going around without health insurance.
We should not be spending twice as much per person on health care as do the people of any other nation.
That's too absurd for reality.
Please join me.
It makes more sense.
And fight for a Medicare for all program.
Are you looking forward, by the way?
I'm not going to ask you your age.
Won't do that.
But are you looking forward maybe when you get to 65 to get Medicare?
Would that be of help to your family?
I expect that that will probably happen.
Good.
Well, I certainly hope it does, and I hope Medicare is still there, despite the efforts of Senator Cruz and others, so that when you at least reach 65, you will be able to get a decent health insurance program.
Well, Bernie, since apparently I'm now trying to kill the elderly...
Nice.
Let me ask you a question.
When you heard that her premiums had skyrocketed, that she can't afford health insurance...
You kind of said, well, premiums always go up.
I mean, let me ask you, why did President Obama look in the eyes of the American people and promise LaRonda that her health insurance premiums would go down $2,500 a year?
Was he telling the truth when he said that, and were you and the other Democrats telling the truth when you echoed his promise to the American people?
Ted, for a start, as everybody knows, healthcare is pretty complicated.
I think President Obama is an honest person, and I think based on his assessment, that's what he believed.
What just happened?
Turns out not to be true.
I can't do it.
No, I can't do his voice, so I'm not going to say it.
No, Bernie?
No, you can't do it.
Jared, you do it.
You can't do it.
And that means that we have to appreciate that we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars every single year, not on healthcare, but on administration and bureaucracy.
Wait, what?
$100 billion on administrative and bureaucracy?
Really?
Does he know the numbers that he's throwing around?
Take a guess who the administrators are.
Their name is Bernie.
So we have to figure out how we have a simple system that guarantees health care to all people.
When we do that, you and your employees will all have health care.
No plans, no facts, no strategy whatsoever, and no answer.
If we do this, if we spend this amount of money, you'll get this.
He's the bullet point memo guy.
By the way, Kyle of Secular Talk told Ted Cruz to shove his prayers up his ass.
He's just such a moron, that guy.
He's a moron and he's a coward who won't debate anybody.
In fact, there's some amazing stats I'm going to go back and get because they're really quite powerful.
If you look at the paperwork impact, Obamacare's rules alone, and by the way, the Obamacare rules are 20,000 pages.
They're taller than seven feet tall.
Ted Cruz?
They generate $51 billion in costs and more than 172 million hours of paperwork.
I wipe my ass with you.
What does that mean?
That would take 86,200 employees working full-time, 2,000 hours a year.
To complete one year of new paperwork under Obamacare, that's roughly the entire population of Miami Beach, Florida, doing nothing but filling out Obamacare forms.
If you want your doctor to get back to caring for you, if you want to drive down costs, get government out of the business of dictating and controlling health care.
Well, costs.
There you go.
There is far too much paperwork.
Some of it is government, but you know what some of it is also?
It is insurance companies.
Every American who has filed a claim has the experience of fighting with insurance companies to make sure that they get what they are entitled to.
Do you think Bernie in his youth was raped by an insurance salesman?
Is that a real possibility?
That is why we need a simple system.
And as Americans, Ted, we're going to have to make a very fundamental decision.
Very simple.
Is health care a right of all people?
Is it or not?
Ted doesn't think it is.
I do think it is.
And then if we agree, and I think most Americans do, that it is a right, how do you provide health care to all people with high quality in a cost-effective way?
I happen to believe that Medicare is a popular program.
It works well.
Right now, you get it?
It's 65.
I think every American...
Senator Sanders, I want to pick the discussion up right there, if I may.
You're a cheater, Gerald.
I'm a sipper.
All of you are cheaters.
It's not a sipper.
That's not the drinking game.
Edward the Sound Guy is the only one with a pendulous pear, and all of you are walking around with your...
You were talking about paperwork from insurance companies.
I agree.
There's way too much paperwork from insurance companies.
I'd like insurance companies to have less power and patients to have more power.
Someone said you missed one.
He said entitled.
No, that's not a drink.
You and I could agree on a common sense reform of allowing LaRonda to purchase health insurance in any of the 50 states.
Right now, she's a Texan.
It's illegal for her to purchase health insurance anywhere else.
That would give her a choice.
If she doesn't like what the Texas companies are offering, she can go to Oklahoma, she can go to Florida, she can go to any other state.
That creates a 50-state national marketplace.
It drives down costs.
That's where Bernie got ready for the insurance salesman.
There was no one around to here for miles!
Medicare for all single-payer systems is a lot better idea.
A practical step that he goes, no, no, no, my idea is better.
My idea will never happen.
But let's not do yours, even though it would help people out in the short time.
But you think your deductibles are high now, it will be a lot higher.
Look, Ted, you're right.
This is a good discussion.
And here is the issue.
Ted, let me ask you a question.
Sure.
Is every American entitled to health care as a right of being an American?
Yes or no?
I'm glad you asked that.
Right is a word you use a lot.
Let's talk about what rights are.
Rights mean you have a right for government not to mess with you, for government not to do things with you.
Look at the Bill of Rights.
The Bill of Rights.
Free speech means the government can't silence you when you're speaking.
Religious liberty means the government can't control who you worship, what your faith is.
The Second Amendment means the government can't take away your guns.
Those are rights.
You know what the Declaration of Independence said?
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator, With certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
So what is a right?
Is access to health care.
What is a right?
Is choosing your own doctor.
And if you believe health care is a right, why on earth did you help write Obamacare that caused 6 million people to have their health insurance canceled, that had them lose their doctors, and had people like LaRonda, who can't get health insurance, can't afford premiums, you're denying her what you say is her right.
Well, two things.
Hot damn Decker drank his milk.
Somebody from Bernie's Corner needs to throw this out.
Celebratory toast.
Yes.
Good job, Teddy.
Access to health care is a right.
She has access.
And choosing your doctor is a right.
You have access right now.
Go out and get a really great health insurance program.
You don't have enough money.
Oh, you can't do it because you can't afford it.
All right?
That's what he said.
Access to what?
You want to buy one of Donald Trump's mansions?
You have access to do that as well.
Oh, you can't afford $5 million per house?
Sorry.
Access doesn't mean a damn thing.
That's the pool boy's house.
That they need.
And they can't under Obamacare.
Second of all, let's...
Some people...
Ah, crap, he said something that was true.
Don't argue with me when I tell you that 20 million more people did get health insurance, all right?
We used to have 48 million people in this country...
They were forced to.
...for zero insurance before Obamacare.
They don't actually have health care, though, but hey, who's counting?
Ted talked to the young people, and he said, once you go out with enthusiasm, go out and go to get a job, he's right.
But under Ted's ideas, if Obamacare is repealed, right now, if you're under 26, you can stay in your parents' insurance program.
That's one of the things we did in Obamacare.
Good idea.
Ted would repeal that.
So as you go out into the real world, be very careful about not having an accident.
You may have to pay for your own stuff in the real world.
We're going to take a quick break.
We have a lot more to discuss.
A lot more.
Oh, it must be longer.
Hold on, let him finish.
Yeah.
Oh, Ted just smiled awkwardly.
Everybody else better be opening number two.
All right, fine, fine.
So I think that was very revealing.
Bernie Sanders was saying, you have access, but you don't have enough money.
What he's now saying is access, the ability to, the choice of...
These are generally what define fundamental rights.
The rights to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.
None of those are guaranteed outcomes.
Those are all the right to access, the right to choose, to pursue.
He is now saying, you have the right...
To enough money, by proxy, the right to enough other people's money to get health care.
Bernie Sanders doesn't believe that decent health care is a human right.
He believes that you have a right to steal from someone else to purchase health care.
And he just said that.
And I think that's an important point, and I hope other people catch that from tonight.
I think he tries to also paint us into a bit of a corner.
Obviously, you and I want people to have good health care, right?
We're making the argument that it's not possible to give people free health care, so we have to do something else, right?
We're trying to come up with a system that actually will work, will provide innovation, will keep people healthy, and is sustainable, and will not bankrupt our country, see the rest of the world.
And then we get vilified for saying, we don't want people to be healthy.
We want poor people to be dying on the streets from very curable, preventable diseases.
That's absolutely not true.
I get pissed off a lot about that.
This is Gerald pissed off, by the way, not KJ. I don't quite...
Goal darn it!
You guys, I mean, golly gee, guys.
You know what really gets my goat?
Is when people just...
They exercise their authority outside the realm of constitutionality.
Yes!
Preach!
Oh, God, what was that?
That sounded like hell.
It went through the wrong speaker?
Trying to do a thug life and that was a fail.
Pretty good effect.
So I do think that was probably the most revealing segment thus far.
Yes.
Thank you, Hopper.
He agrees.
Hey, Hopper.
Come on over here.
Oh, look at that.
He's looking up at you like, huh?
Hey, buddy.
How do I do this?
I know.
I don't like Bernie either.
Yes.
He's chewing on his toy because Bernie Sanders is a prick.
My dog even thinks so.
So I do think that was a very important segment.
And again, if you look at tonight, if you're an objective observer, there's one person with facts.
Wait, wait.
What?
This.
Oh, this commercial?
I love that commercial.
Yes.
Okay.
And we're done.
I've never seen it before.
That's good stuff.
Hold on a second.
Let me see.
Kyle Kalinsky is tweeting right now.
What's he got?
Oh, he blocked me.
He must have.
People, tell me what Kyle Kalinske is tweeting.
The guy who won't debate.
The guy who won't show up.
The guy who has his balls.
I'd say balls in his wife's purse, but I think it's in his husband's purse.
Let's see.
How do you spell Sase?
I don't know.
Sase is spelled...
Let's see.
Is it a K or C? I don't know.
Courtney's got a pretty funny Jim Carrey tweet.
Can we get Gerald on as a guest?
Alex Minufar said.
That's right.
That's right.
Bring the pain.
Faith Frolic says, Bernie was yelling at the woman who shared her personal story.
Exactly.
He was yelling at her.
He was vilifying her.
And then it turns out she couldn't afford health care.
Can you please list, tweet the list of things to drink during the debate?
I'm falling a little behind.
I've had a Shiner cold brew coffee ale, a Four Corners local buzz honey rye golden ale, and now I'm on a Kolsch.
And Jared is simply on the first one.
Do you need another beer?
I'll get you another beer.
You had a Revolver Blood and Honey?
I did, yes.
And nothing else?
Well, I had two Revolver Blood and Honeys before I came over.
Oh, did you actually?
I did, yes, for dinner at five.
So I'm good.
Just the taste.
I need something different.
Someone just sent me a...
Oh, we're standing by.
Oh, they just put that in there because online they can't fill the commercial space.
Candace says, Ted is on fire.
Someone says, Liberty for Sweden says, As a Swedish citizen, I cringe when socialists like Bernie use us as an example of success.
It's a failure.
Ted, you smart, you loyal.
So apparently black people in Sweden.
Let's go back to the debate.
It's 140 characters.
Come on.
Senators, thanks so much for participating here.
I want to ask you, since Obamacare was enacted...
Cali Polinsky said, poor business owners who have five businesses and 45 employees, when will we stop oppressing them?
The business owners, he's right.
What an ass.
...to 11 million low-income people.
One of the Americans who benefited from the Obamacare Medicaid expansion is Carol Hardaway of Salisbury, Maryland.
Carol?
Thank you.
I have multiple sclerosis, but could not afford insurance.
Without the treatment or medications I need...
How do they find these people?
Do they just find the Rolodex from St.
Jude's 30 years ago?
And just say, alright, they're probably sick enough now.
Because they refuse to expand Medicaid to Maryland.
And within two weeks, I started receiving treatments through Medicaid.
And am now well enough to work as a substitute teacher.
Senator Cruz, can you promise me that you and the Republican leaders in Congress will actually have a replacement plan in place for people like me, who depend on their Medicaid?
In other words, I like my coverage.
Can I keep it?
Well, Carol, thank you for sharing your story, and congratulations on dealing with MS. It's a terrible disease, and congratulations on your struggles dealing with it.
You know, if you look at Medicaid, more than half of the people who've been covered under Obamacare have been under Medicaid.
And the problem is Medicaid is a profoundly troubled program.
And so it may be working well with you.
But I'll tell you nationally, the health outcomes under Medicaid are really poor.
Nationally, 54% of doctors won't take new Medicaid patients.
Nationally, Dental care appointments for moms are denied at a 63% rate on Medicaid.
The denial rate for private insurance is 4%.
And Medicaid patients are almost twice as likely to die from medical treatment as those with private health insurance.
The solution for people who are hurting, I believe we should have a system that allows as many people as possible To be on the private health insurance of your choice, rather than Medicaid, because the Medicaid outcomes are not working and people are suffering.
And what's happened also, it's really quite striking.
Bernie Sanders points out free, and Ted Cruz points out quality.
That is a fundamental difference in worldview in your approach to public services.
I found their wait times increasing.
In fact, in Illinois, on Medicaid, over 700 people have died on the waiting list for care for Medicaid.
So I'm glad that you're receiving health care.
I can tell you a great many of the people on Medicaid aren't.
And I'd much rather see a system where we can have millions of those on Medicaid getting health insurance.
And the only way they can is if we have competition so that rates are lower so that you can afford to have health insurance.
Senator Sanders?
We heard from a woman who runs a hair salon in Fort Worth, who can't afford to provide health insurance to her workers and for herself.
And I promptly took a dump on her.
We hear a story now about a woman who has to leave her own state, go to another state, because that state is providing Medicaid.
My friends, you are living, I know you don't know this, by these stories.
You're living in the wealthiest country in the history of the world.
Where the rich are becoming phenomenally richer, while we have 43 million people living in poverty, and the middle class is in decline.
These stories are obscene.
They should not be taking place in the United States.
Now, are there problems with Medicaid?
Apparently, Kyle from Secular Talk is having a meltdown right now.
To those Republican governors around the country who told poor people That they would not be able to, for the first time in their lives, in many instances, get access to health care.
Access.
To be able to go to a doctor.
Damn it.
When the federal government paid for the first three years at 100%.
Edward, the sound guy must be south.
He's drinking wine.
I hope.
I hope that those governors sleep well.
Out of a high-quality mug.
Because I don't know how many people lost their lives as a result of their decision.
So once again, what we are looking at is a dysfunctional system.
It's scientifically proven to boost alcohol percentage and enjoyment and consumption of alcoholic beverages by 142%.
ABV by at least 3%.
Mug club.
Or the other.
This country finally is going to have to do, in my view, what every other major country does.
And yes, I believe, Ted, health care is a human right.
Major countries like Iceland with a population of 400,000.
I believe that this country has got to join every other major country and say, you can stay home and get quality care because you're an American.
You can run your small business well and get care because you are an American.
That is where we have got to go.
Well, you know, when Bernie says, well, Medicaid has problems.
You want to talk about people who lost their rights?
You said well.
I thought you were going to skip it.
I drank it.
Put on a waiting list for Medicaid after Illinois expanded its Medicaid for Oklahoma's home state and they died.
Awaiting care under Medicaid.
Why?
Because Medicaid is ration care.
Those wait lists.
You know, Bernie likes to talk about Medicare for all, but let me be clear what his program is.
It's Medicaid for all.
It is rationed care nationally.
You want to know what that looks like?
He keeps pointing to other countries.
Let's look at, for example, the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom 2001 report noted that 39% of women over 80 in the United Kingdom receive surgery for breast cancer compared to 90% of the women under 50.
And that men and women under the age of 55 were two and a half times more likely than those over 75 to receive cancer treatment.
You see Bernie's wheels turning like, oh, should have brought back.
Said speak from the heart.
I am notably under-armed.
It looks like Medicaid.
It looks like the people who are suffering.
Objectively, you've got to give this one to Ted.
It's not even close.
Ninety-one million people, roughly, that are covered by insurance.
I don't think we should be screwing up the insurance of millions of Americans and putting them under rationing.
Numbers.
Just think of numbers.
Numbers.
Any number.
And that's what Obamacare has moved us down the road to doing.
Hi, folks.
Watch me pull this rabbit out of my head.
Medicaid has problems.
And Vermont has problems.
All over the country, it has problems.
You know what that solution is?
Massive cuts in federal funding for Medicaid.
So you've got a problem, and what Ted wants to do is make it worse.
You mentioned dental care.
So note to all people who say that Bernie Sanders is not a social justice warrior.
What he just did was immediately attribute motive because he was losing.
So if you still think that you're an anti-regressive, anti-social justice warrior, but you support Bernie Sanders, you're an idiot.
Make you have a nice smile, but they may have to provide real dental care to the children and others who absolutely need it.
Furthermore, what we have to do...
Is we need tens of thousands more doctors in this country.
But we're going to pay you a lot less.
We have a major crisis in primary care.
There are areas in urban America and in rural America where people literally can't find a doctor to serve their needs.
And one of the reasons, a number of reasons for that, one of them is you go to medical school, you can come out hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.
Here we go.
Free school is coming up.
Wait for it.
And then you're going to become a plastic surgeon.
And now it's the Boodle and nothing is safe, Charles.
It tells me that we've got to expand the program called the National Health Service Corps so that our young people can get their debts repaid if they commit to serving in underserved areas.
Let's get doctors out into the areas where we need them.
Let me just jump in if I can.
Carol, just shake your head.
Senator Cruz, a former senator, did he answer your question?
No, we did not.
The question was, Senator Cruz, can you promise me that you and the Republican leaders in Congress will actually have a replacement plan in place for people like me who depend on their Medicaid?
She got Medicaid through the Obamacare expansion of Medicaid.
We've all heard you criticize Medicaid.
What happens to Carol?
Well, what I said, Jake, is that Medicaid isn't working for millions of people, and Obamacare made Medicaid worse by expanding the wait list, by jamming more people on it.
You want to talk about replacement?
There's widespread agreement on replacement plans.
Number one, allowing people to purchase across state lines, giving you more choice.
Now, Bernie said he closes that.
He doesn't want to let you find insurance.
When I say you're the party of note, there are plenty of solutions offered by Republicans and conservatives.
Number two, expanding health savings accounts, so you can save in a tax-advantaged way to meet your own health care needs.
Number three, making health insurance portable so that it goes with you from job to job.
I imagine, ma'am, at some point you had insurance with a job.
If insurance was portable right now, federal tax law incentivizes most of us to get our insurance from the government.
And if you lose your job, you lose that insurance.
One of the best solutions to the problem of pre-existing conditions is making health insurance portable so it goes with you.
You know, when you lose your job, you don't lose your car insurance, your life insurance, your house insurance.
There's no reason to lose your health insurance.
And if your insurance is portable, it goes with you, it's affordable, you have choices.
Now, notice Bernie's solution.
We want more doctors.
We all agree on more doctors.
He says, well, the government needs to hire more.
You know, I can point to something that works on that.
In Texas, we passed tort reform.
We fundamentally limited lawsuits and lawsuit abuse.
And you know what we've seen?
We've seen the number of doctors increasing dramatically.
We've seen medical malpractice premiums dropping.
I personally prefer no tort reform where ambulance chases like John Edwards can create sex tapes with pregnant women while the wife has cancer.
people from going to medical school and training to be done busy performing pap smears smears of pap put the ST on the end it's important bagel and a pap smear it is the state of Texas And by the way, may I say proudly that Vermont is number two.
In terms of the percentage of people who are insured.
We have relatively few who are uninsured.
And by the way, amazingly enough...
It's like 400 people and they're all white and rich.
It is Massachusetts with Romney Care, which was the prototype for the Affordable Care Act.
Well, you know, the nice thing, Bernie, again, people vote with their feet.
And for north of a decade now, roughly 1,000 people a day have been moving to Texas because we have an environment that allows people to get jobs.
And so people vote with their feet.
And you're right.
There are states.
Vermont is a lovely state.
doesn't have a ton of diversity nearly the populations Texas has populations that are just starting when my dad went to Texas in 1957 I know a black guy whose street name is Rutabaga - You've never met Rutabaga!
But he came to go to the University of Texas.
He came to get opportunities.
That job enabled him to get another job where he could get health care.
That's a much better solution.
Create an environment where you don't tax the living daylights out of people.
It's why people choose to see where they get jobs.
Aren't we all happy that under Obama we created 15 million new jobs in the private sector?
Senators, I want to get to more audience questions.
And this one is about...
That's a slight of hand trick.
You always create a certain amount of new jobs in the private sector.
It's the percentage of new jobs created in the private sector versus the public sector, which there was an unbelievable discrepancy with Obama and nearly all previous presidents, where nearly all the new jobs created were.
Thank you.
I'm a nursing student at the Medical University of South Carolina, and I'm concerned about...
Bernie's going, she's preggers!
...the Affordable Care Act will have on women's health, and specifically for pregnant women.
So I'm five months pregnant, and I actually qualified for...
Bernie's going, have you considered abortion?
Oh, jeez.
Senator Cruz, what policies do you have in place to protect pregnant women from losing their health coverage, either due to being considered having a pre-existing condition or from being charged higher insurance premiums than men?
Well, congratulations on your new baby.
Is it a boy or a girl?
Congratulations right there.
And you said you have an older child?
What's your older child?
We have a two-year-old son.
What's his name?
Samson.
Well, you know she's a Ted Cruz voter.
That's right.
Well, how wonderful and congratulations.
Thank you.
Hey, cut his hair!
Wonderful, wonderful.
Listen, maternity coverage is incredible.
I've read the Torah!
No!
New ropes!
Delilah was a lying, frigid bitch!
...mandate every coverage on Earth.
And it sounds really good.
You know, I had a conversation a couple of years ago with a gentleman in Amarillo, Texas.
Who told me the story about his 101-year-old aunt, who just had her insurance canceled.
And she said the reason it was canceled was that it didn't cover maternity care.
Now, this fellow laughed and said, you know what?
My aunt is 101 years old.
She doesn't really need maternity coverage.
Did someone just say Maria?
I think that was them.
Did we just hear something going to the earpiece that we weren't supposed to hear from CNN? Somebody tweet us.
Did that actually happen?
Did anyone else just hear them say Maria?
That wasn't in our room.
That was not in our room.
That definitely was not us.
Did you hear Maria whisper from CNN and tweet me at S. Crowder?
Or was it hurry up?
I don't know.
I couldn't hear.
But it's a little bit like giving everyone a bus ticket.
When there are no buses.
What we should care about is access to health care, not just insurance.
Oh, there we go.
I said that half an hour ago.
And what's happened under Obamacare is that millions of people can't afford it.
We should be concerned about people being able to afford health insurance, and that means giving them the choice in 50 states to choose a policy.
In your instance, you would choose a policy that had maternity coverage, but someone else who right now can't afford it might choose a different policy.
And when government mandates it, those choices go away.
Senator Sanders, your response?
People said yes, they heard Maria.
What Ted is really telling me...
This is going to be a conspiracy.
They were saying something.
And not every pregnancy is planned.
And if a woman under...
Seriously?
A pregnant woman before Obama...
He's making this up as...
Hold on a second.
Wait for it.
Hold on a second.
...a pre-existing condition.
And now, why would an insurance company want to provide care to you when...
Yeah, but your party considers it a parasite, you piece of shit.
...you don't make money doing that.
And Ted keeps talking about these mandates.
So let's be clear again what Senator Cruz and his Republican friends want to do.
They do not want to guarantee...
That women who become pregnant will be able to get the health care and the prenatal care that they need.
Abortion.
Which is a terrible thing, by the way.
Sorry.
Because we have one of the highest infant mortality rates in the industrialized world.
And by prenatal care, I mean murdering the bastard.
It says to young people who today are on their parents' program, you're out, you're on your own after you leave college.
He says that if you come down with a terrible illness and you're ending up spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, your insurance company can now tell you that there is a limit to what they will pay.
And he is telling 20 million people who gained health insurance under Obamacare, sorry, you're out on the streets.
Bottom line is, once again, The discussion, if you really think about the kinds of discussion that we're having, it is an absurd discussion for the wealthiest nation in the history of the world.
Senator Sanders, let me follow up on that, if I may.
I want to respond to that real briefly, if I can.
Please, go ahead.
You know, it's interesting sometimes the rhetoric that our friends on the left like to say that anyone who doesn't support government control of our health care somehow doesn't like and fit in whatever population you're talking about.
Good call.
But let's again go back to facts and let's talk about young people.
You know, there's no group in America, I think, that's been hurt more by Obamacare than young people.
Young people were left on the chopping block.
Let's talk about some basic stats.
A recent study found that the Obamacare mandates what Bernie just sang an ode to.
Have increased the three costliest mandates of increased premiums for younger people by 44%.
Without those mandates, the typical 21-year-old would pay $1,100 a year less.
If you're 21, think about whether it would be easier to afford health care if it costs $1,100 a year less.
Here's a good example.
He can't appeal to the Bernie voter base because they think they should get free health care until they're 26.
...affordable plan that was available for a 30-year-old Texan For a 30-year-old Texan woman was $470 a year.
Today, under Obamacare, the cheapest plan that's available for a healthy 30-year-old woman in Fort Worth is $3,236.
It's gone from $470 to $3,000 over $3,200.
With a much higher deductible, by the way.
Is it jacked up the rates on all the young people?
Why do you think there's an individual mandate?
It's to force young people to pay really high rates to subsidize the rest of the system.
And if you don't pay it, the IRS fines you.
And you know, over six million people are fined each year by the IRS under Obamacare.
Senator, we're going to get to the question of fines and so forth in a minute, but I want to circle back to women's health and ask you, Senator Sanders, why should a 60-year-old male or women who are beyond childbearing years be required to have health insurance plans that have maternity care?
I don't think they should.
But I do think that's what we might want to look at.
But I do believe that in the United States of America, where we talk a lot about our love for children, that pregnancy is not and should not be considered a pre-existing condition.
That every woman in this country who gets pregnant should be 100% assured that she is going to get the highest quality care she needs to deliver a healthy baby.
Senator Cruz, I want to stay on the issue of women's health.
How?
Under Obamacare.
Yeah, but that feels good.
Oh, he's for me, but he has no plan to do it.
Thank you.
You contributed nothing to this thing.
It's going to be a choice for each patient to make.
Listen, Obamacare is all about choice.
Are you on your first beer still, Jared?
Suck it, man.
Number two.
The same is true with the mandates.
Every mandate, people will say, gosh, I'd like that.
Imagine if the federal government mandated that everyone in America must drive a Lamborghini.
With a bad accent.
I've never driven a Lamborghini.
They look kind of fun.
But you know what?
I'm willing to bet most of us, if that was the mandate, and it'd be cool, you could say leather seats, you could go, I don't know, 200 miles an hour.
What it would mean for most people is you couldn't afford a car.
I ride my bike.
It has four gears, you know!
I got one chip to hear, one chip to hear.
Beautiful.
It's putting people in a situation like LaRonda where they get nothing.
They don't get health care of any kind.
Her employees don't get health care because Obamacare has driven the cost up, and that's why people are hurting so much under it.
Two points.
Our employees are not getting health care because in Texas You do not expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
No, she has 49 employees.
She's not covered under and she's not hiring more.
Oh, man!
What?
That deserves a lot of money.
It feels good to be a gangster.
A real gangster.
Very clear.
That the discussion that we're having when Ted talks about mandates, I look at it differently.
And also what we should be clear about is Ted says, well, there's just not enough money.
We all can't drive fancy cars.
I think it's a bit disingenuous to talk about driving a fancy car with getting access to health care when you're sick.
Last point on this issue.
If we repeal the Affordable Care Act, we are going to provide $346 billion in tax breaks to the top 2%.
What?
Ted, in other ways, goes even further.
He wants to repeal the estate tax which applies to the top two-tenths of 1%.
The very wealthiest people in this country and give them, collectively, hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks.
Ted, we are the wealthiest country in the world.
And it's not a question of everybody driving a fancy car, but it is a question of making sure that every man, woman, and child in this country has health care as a right.
I want to bring it back to a subject.
Wait, wait, wait.
Let me respond to that real quickly.
I know this gentleman has a question, but I want to respond to what Bernie said.
What Bernie said real quickly, I want to respond to just briefly.
Which, you know, it was interesting in the course of the campaign last year.
I would encounter young people all over the country.
There were a lot of young people who supported our campaign.
A lot of young people who supported Bernie's.
And I would talk with different people supporting Bernie.
And I'd say to them, typically young people, I'd say, you know what, I agree with Bernie.
And they'd sort of look at me.
They'd be startled.
They'd say, what are you talking about?
I said, listen, Bernie talks about how Washington is corrupt, how both parties are corrupt, how both parties are in bed with big business and big money, and it is a corrupt system benefiting the special interest.
I agree absolutely and entirely.
And what I tell folks is where I disagree is in his solution.
If the problem is government is corrupt, why on earth would you want more power in Washington?
I want to take power out of Washington and empower the people.
When it comes to taxes, what I want to see is a simple flat tax of 10% for everyone and abolish the IRS. That ends the power of the lobbyists.
It ends the power of Washington.
That's a solution that empowers the people.
And in the midst of massive, unprecedented income and wealth inequality, Ted's plan, according to the Wall Street Journal, would give incredible tax breaks to the top.
Okay, we'll do another town hall debate on tax reform.
Okay.
We're going to take a very quick break.
And when we come back, a subject where there might be some agreement, the debate continues with Senators Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders in a moment.
I have to use the restroom.
Can you handle this one?
Yeah, sure.
Gerald and Jared, you got it.
Awesome.
I don't know what we do now.
I don't know what we do now.
I'm fiddling with my balls like Bernie Sanders!
So, do we just talk awkwardly about Stephen?
We could talk about Stephen.
Make fun of him a little bit?
I think we could definitely do that.
Bernie Sanders just keeps coming back with like...
He opens his mouth because I think there's a lag time between when the thought happens in his head and when the actual words come out.
I think he starts talking six seconds prior to when sound comes out.
And he leans forward.
Yes, he opens his mouth.
His brain thinks that he's talking, but he's not actually making sound yet.
He does seem slow tonight.
He seems a little off his rocker.
Well, it's hard to say.
Is he just gathering his thoughts?
Is he trying to form a sentence?
Or is he just not remembering where he's at?
I don't think he's used to talking to somebody who has data and facts.
I think he's used to talking to a crowd of people that hear free stuff and that hear that they can get everything that they want without having to face the realities of life and deal with struggle, by the way.
Well, I mean, I'm sure he's been on the Senate floor and stuff, but this is probably the first time you think about it...
You know, through all the primaries, it's him and Hillary.
They agree on 90% of everything.
So he was never a force to make his case to somebody who had even a slightly different opinion, let alone a Ted Cruz who has, you know, he's excellent on the floor.
You've seen him with the Sierra Club.
You've seen him with the other people.
He's a master debater, some may say.
Yeah.
No, and this is what I liked about this.
I understand that there are people out there who don't like Ted Cruz, but here's really what I want.
I want people to take the content of the argument and just base your opinion on that.
I don't care if you like or dislike Bernie.
I don't care if you like or dislike Ted Cruz or even CNN, right?
So some people will be, oh, CNN, every one of these questions is loaded, right?
That's not the case.
It's not what happens.
It sometimes is like that, but sometimes they're getting out of the way and Just take it based on the evidence.
The fake news comes in when they report on all this tomorrow.
Exactly, yeah.
That's when the fake news starts happening.
Ted Cruz said that he basically agrees with Bernie Sanders.
Yes.
Take it completely out of context and say, that's the clip they're going to play every single time right now.
That's the game that we put them in the position of playing.
Bernie Sanders just sacks Ted Cruz.
Yeah, exactly.
Bernie quotes statistics to Ted Cruz talking about feeling.
And you're like, wait, did you actually watch the debates last night?
Now we're still waiting for them.
How is this that everybody else is still on beverage one or two?
I don't know, but we've got ulcerative colitis talking right now.
How bad was it?
Tweet me at S. Crowder.
It wasn't bad.
Hey, I got a few people on there.
Someone check Edward the Sound Guy's wine bottle.
We will.
We will definitely check it.
Because it's dark.
You can't see.
Oh, he's about a glass and a half in.
I'm an expert on these things.
I've got a couple of people saying they want to see me more often.
I mean, there's two out of 17 million people.
Gazillion people.
There's two.
Two.
Family doesn't count, right?
No.
But Hillary did say something very important.
And I mean the good Hillary.
Stevens Hillary.
She said we need to show a shot of Hopper.
She wants to see a little bit more Hopper.
Oh, there he is.
Look at him.
He is tearing up the duck.
He's just going to town.
You wrote Bernie on it.
That's almost kind of like what Ted Cruz is doing to Bernie Sanders right now.
It really is.
In a loving way.
It looks very affectionate.
It's like a very affectionate feeling right there.
I'm beating the crap out of you lovingly.
Can you get that out as a screenshot, Jared?
I'm going to get that as a screenshot.
Get it as a screenshot.
Screenshot.
Screenshot is got.
Who's using my iPhone?
It says Jennifer is using my iPhone.
Well, that's fun.
My iPhone's in the green room.
All right, we're back.
Yeah, boy.
Welcome back to the CNN debate on the future of Obamacare.
Let's turn now to the rise in prescription drug costs.
For that, I want to bring in Cole Gilrod.
He comes from Denver, Colorado.
He's a father of two, whose daughter Juniper requires medication that would cost $900 a month without Medicaid.
He came down from this town hall from an evening of moonshining.
R.E.P. Scott has taken off.
Bye, Scotty.
Unfortunately for us and families like ours, our employer providing insurance does not cover the most vital of my daughter's life-saving prescriptions.
This luckily hasn't been an unbearable financial burden for my family because of Obamacare and particularly the Medicaid expansion.
Senator Cruz, regardless of what happened to the healthcare firm, how do you plan to address rising cost prescription drugs?
Additionally, how would you like to address a healthcare system where insurance companies can choose to not cover drugs that people like my daughter need to live?
Well, thank you for the question and thank you for the care you give to your three-year-old daughter.
I know that that is not easy.
And the question you ask is one of the great challenges facing this country is we've seen the cost of drugs increasing dramatically.
One area Bernie and I talked about we agree on is allowing the importation of drugs into this country from other countries where they're cheaper.
There's no reason why we should be subsidizing other countries across the globe.
But another fundamental area is FDA reform, where the costs of getting a new drug approved are prohibitedly expensive.
I don't know if you've ever seen or folks have ever seen the movie Dallas Buyers Club.
It's a wonderful movie with Matthew McConaughey about a gentleman, a gentleman in Texas.
That's the one with Jared Leto.
And wanted to get drugs to care for it.
And the FDA wouldn't allow it here.
He traveled to Mexico.
He traveled to Japan.
He traveled all over the world trying to get life-saving drugs.
There is story after story after story of exactly that happening.
Life-saving drugs that are available, that are approved, that are used in Europe, that are used in Canada.
Do you think Ted Cruz has actually seen Dallas Buyers Club?
They show that at the church meeting.
It's so valuable that if we lift the barriers to let people try, give you a right to try, if it's your life, you have a right to choose, you have a right to choose.
Choose!
Listen, the big boys, the big players...
Like government regulation, Dodd-Frank benefited the big banks.
Tough FDA barriers to entry benefit the big pharmaceutical companies.
Massive complexity in tax laws benefits big corporations.
By reducing those barriers, we have competition and there's the opportunity.
I believe we can have innovative cures.
To give you a sense, The four most devastating diseases in terms of human life and dollars.
Heart disease, Alzheimer's, diabetes, and cancer.
Derek News says we missed a well.
Let's honor it.
We ought to be investing everything we can to cure those diseases.
Just curing cancer.
An incredible achievement.
Would save $50 trillion and countless lives across the globe.
Thank you, Sanders.
And the FDA is a barrier to doing that.
Dr.
Brzezinski in Houston, look it up.
You'll thank me later.
Here's the simple issue.
Dr.
Brzezinski in Houston.
We pay, just as the case with health care, we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.
Fifteen years ago, you know what I did?
I took a busload of women, working-class women, from Vermont.
Dealing with breast cancer across the Canadian border.
And they were able to purchase...
This is going to get funny real quick.
For one-tenth of the price they were paying in the United States of America.
Tears were coming out of these working-class women's eyes, fighting for their lives.
What's going on?
What's going on is the pharmaceutical industry owns the United States Congress.
And in all fairness...
That's actually true.
I will admit, it's not just Republicans.
They have a huge influence over the Democratic Party as well.
So right now, the reality is, uniquely in the whole world, you can walk in tomorrow to the pharmacy.
So this is a two-hour town hall.
Gosh, we really thought it would be over earlier.
And there's nothing that anybody can do about it.
This beer drinking thing was a bad idea.
We have to tell the pharmaceutical industry, which in 2015 made $50 billion in profit for the five major companies, Where the top 10 executives made over $300 million in compensation.
How much did they invest?
How little do they have hired?
How much risk did they take?
How much risk did they take?
Two things that we could do immediately.
Ted is right.
I introduced and will introduce...
He always takes credit for introducing the legislation.
Ted is right.
He signed on to my bill.
Pharmacists and distributors and the American people...
He's like the matchmaker for shitty legislation.
...any place in the world.
That would drive down...
Let's play the dating game.
Here's the bill.
Who wants it?
They always pick each other.
They look for a good weekend together.
Terrible.
We should be negotiating drug prices through Medicare.
Oh, there it is, Medicare.
We're back to it.
Right now, Republicans put language in some years ago, which prevents them from negotiating prices.
I would hope Ted will join me in saying that Medicare should be able to do what the VA does.
We can lower prices as well.
Well, good.
Let's use the VA as a shiny example of how the system should work.
You've got 1,400 well-paid lobbyists right now.
Get the headstones right, guys.
We'll start there.
They're working against you.
They're working against your daughter.
The only thing they want is more and more profit.
Oh, God.
This is like a parody.
They could care less about the needs of the American people.
Well, but, Bernie, the barriers are also coming from government.
And I'll give an example.
A Texas constituent, Cassie Lay, has a seven-year-old daughter.
Hey, Cassie J. We have a show tomorrow, by the way.
That was put on a feeding tube when she was seven months old.
And there's a drug called Domperidone.
That is used all across the world to treat the condition she has called gastroparesis.
She was put on Domperidone, this seven-month-old girl.
She was off the feeding tube.
She was living well.
Domperidone is available in more than 100 countries, including Canada and throughout the European Union.
Did you say Domperidone?
I think it was champagne that's available everywhere.
And I'll tell you what Cassie's mother said.
I fear she will need to get a feeding tube again.
How do I tell her that?
She's a little girl who has worked extremely hard to overcome her fears of eating, and now her joy of just being a normal little girl will be taken away.
We shouldn't have the government putting barriers to people getting the drugs they need.
Okay, I think that's a fair.
You should see your Edward the sound guy.
I can't drink anymore.
Mine's 13%.
Damn, this is a pathetic.
It'd be a lot easier if we only had to drive home in Vermont.
You could drive for 80 square miles and not hit anything other than a lady giving a smear of power.
Will you join me?
I do appreciate you coming on board the re-importation.
I really do.
And we can win it if we get Republican support.
Will you stand with me in saying that Medicare, which spends a huge amount of money for prescription drugs, should be able to negotiate prices?
Listen, of course Medicare should negotiate, but you and I have a different view on how you control greed.
Hold on, let me finish what I'm saying.
Your view, you said before that, gosh, these executives make way too much money.
I don't think the government should be in the business of deciding what you get paid and you get paid and you get paid.
And there are socialist countries on Earth.
There are socialist countries that you encourage us to be like.
But those countries are not doing nearly as well as America.
You know, the per capita income in America is over five times the average per capita income in this world.
It's 50% more than the per capita income in Europe.
This is a land of opportunity because there's social mobility.
In socialist countries, if you're born poor, you usually stay poor.
He's been on the ropes this entire time.
Bernie's just in there at this point just to be there.
At the end of it, he's going to be like Robert De Niro on Raging Bull.
You never got me down!
You didn't get me down, Cruz!
You never got me down!
Yeah, that does concern me.
In terms of socialist countries, do you think Denmark and Sweden and Finland are terrible places?
He's also racist.
Those are all white countries.
To America and to the Affordable Care Act.
Throughout your campaign, you said the taxes should go up on the rich, not the middle class, and yet millions of Americans who chose not to get health care are forced to pay a tax penalty.
So families of four are paying up to $2,000 per year for failing to purchase coverage.
Many say that they can't afford the premium, so it's just cheaper for them to pay the penalty than get health care.
So is it fair to put this tax burden on families?
No.
It's not.
But on the other hand, is it fair to not raise the revenue that we need to provide the kinds of benefits that we have?
Oh, but we need it.
It's for a good cause.
No, it's not.
Let's fix this.
Yeah.
No, it's not.
But we need it.
But we're going to do it anyway.
Because I'm a prick.
...to millionaires and billionaires.
This law owner's not a millionaire, billionaire.
You just took a steaming dump on her, Bernie.
He just took a Bernie.
He just took a Bernie.
I just squeezed out a corn-infested piping hot Bernie.
Anytime a liberal goes after a small business owner, they just Bernie'd on her.
Okay, that's got to be a new thing.
Hashtag Bernie.
I just took a warm, pungent, peanut filter.
Peanuts?
Why peanuts?
Bernie.
Well, Dana, let me point out that Bernie acknowledged that 6.5 million Americans are paying Obamacare tax fines because they can't afford insurance.
So they can't afford health insurance.
And then the IRS comes in and fines them.
And he says, gosh, I don't agree with that.
And yet throughout the Democratic debate, Bernie says he helped write Obamacare that imposes these fines on people.
I think it's wrong to be fining people.
But let me make a broader point on that.
Bernie's pooping himself.
He just did this.
Bernie has talked about providing health care for free from the government.
You know what?
The simplest principle in economics is tonstoffel.
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
The liberal-leaning Urban Institute scored Bernie's health plan, concluded it would cost $2.5 trillion in the first year and $32 trillion over 10 years.
Now, how much is that?
Trillions is a big number.
It's not clear what that is.
Let me put it in perspective.
All of the federal income taxes we pay today Are about 1.5 trillion a year.
I feel like any minute Bernie will just say, fuck it, who wants to go to norms?
To get an additional 2.5 trillion.
Now Bernie, no doubt, is going to come back and say, no, no, no, no.
None of you are going to pay.
Just the rich.
Well, how about if we took every person that makes over a million dollars a year and confiscated 100% of their income, took every penny that they make.
He's smiling.
Look at him.
That would raise only enough money to fund Bernie's plan for five months.
You just orgasmed.
Here's another idea.
Oh, I thought this was going to work good.
Of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and ExxonMobil.
If it came in illegally, seized those companies and sold them, that would pay for one year of Bernie's plan.
That's right.
If you don't want to see your taxes triple, He will not address this in his response.
He absolutely will not address that it's absolutely impossible to pay for.
Absolutely.
I'm going to say absolutely one more time.
Ted Cruz just took a Bernie on Bernie.
He did out Bernie the Bernie.
You can't out Bernie the Bernie.
Ted Cruz's Wall Street Journal.
MTV Bernie!
We have to make him look young and hip.
The top 1% of U.S. households, adding about one-third to their after-tax income.
Here is the economic reality facing America.
He's not addressing it at all.
In the last 35 years...
There has been a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class and the working class to the top one-tenth of one percent.
We're talking about trillions of dollars.
Ted's response to that is he's gonna support the repeal of the estate tax, correct?
You're on record in doing that.
And Bernie's now going to say he wants to favor the rich.
Address those numbers, Bernie.
In a college debate club right now, you'd be called on it.
The teacher would call you.
I'd be like, I'm sorry, Bernie.
I'm sorry.
So this right-wing hyperbole about we can confiscate everybody, it's not going to do anything.
It's true.
If we pass the Sanders plan, 95% of people in this country would have more after-tax income than they have right now.
Senators, I'm sorry.
It's clear we have a lot more to debate, and we can do that at a later time.
Go grab an insure.
Fuel up.
Closing statements about health care.
He didn't address it at all.
He was asked a very serious question.
He was given numbers and statistics to deal with, and he took a Bernie.
You know what?
We should check in here.
We're getting late in the evening.
Is Jean-Guy, do we have Jean-Guy?
Jean-Guy Tremblay, are you still there, Mr. Journey for Bernie?
Are you there?
Jean-Guy.
Oh, my gosh.
Yeah, ma'am.
Yeah, man!
Hey!
Hey!
Hey, man!
Hey, can you hear me still, man?
Hey, I can hear you, Jean-D. Can you hear that?
What?
Your mother!
Is a box turtle.
Ooh.
A box turtle.
Box turtles, yeah.
You know, don't cut to me anymore, okay?
I'm going to...
I don't...
I'm going to go enjoy my beer in f***ing peace!
Oh, okay.
That's enough.
Let's get rid of Jean-Guy, probably.
I think he's had enough tonight.
Jean-Guy, I hope you find whatever it is you're looking for.
A box turtle, yes.
That's an insult.
Okay, tweet me at S. Crowder or at NotKJarrett or at G. Morgan Jr.
I try to look at things objectively.
You know, when I looked at the debates, remember we said Trump won one.
Hillary won one of them clearly.
I'm trying to remember the order.
And then one of them was a bit of a toss-up you might give to Hillary.
In this context, I think it's pretty clear-cut Ted Cruz has severely dominated Bernie Sanders.
I think he run-ruled him for all you minor league baseball, or I'm sorry, little league baseball fans.
This is when you call the game after the third inning because it's making the other team not want to compete and play the sport anymore.
Oh, the mercy rule.
Exactly.
The mercy rule is in full effect here.
Ted just mopped the floor with him, but I will say this.
He was in danger of doing too good of a job, and he was able to soften it up pretty well.
He made some really good connections, some jokes, said that he liked Bernie, and he agreed with him on something.
It looks tough if you keep going to the body on a 98-year-old.
Yeah, you start to be...
You gotta go to the body on a 98-year-old.
I'm surprised he's still standing.
By the way, there are a lot of pictures of Bernie fiddling with his balls tonight, in case you haven't seen this.
Him walking around with his hands, cupping his genitals.
Genitalia, yes.
Cupping his scrotum and testicles.
You know, they would fit perfectly in a Louder with Crowder mug.
As not gay Jared knows all too well.
Yes, indeed.
Enjoy your single origin coffee, Jared.
I believe they call that teabag.
I don't know.
I'm just saying...
Well, it's not really teabagging at that point.
Okay, so closing statements.
What do we expect to see in closing statements?
I expect Ted Cruz to close the statement that he agrees with Bernie on the idea that health care needs to be fixed, but that if you look at the facts and statistics, or to some degree thereof, you will see that government has not solved the problem and has made it worse, particularly under Obama.
I expect Bernie Sanders to say, we need more equality, and the rich are not paying their fair share, and it's time to get along with all the other countries in the world and mimic their healthcare plans.
Are those his notes, by the way, or is that the Denny's takeout menu?
I'm always curious.
For Ted Cruz?
No, no, for Bernie.
Way past my eating time.
The one white piece of paper he's had, the only notes set all night.
I want corned beef, no pastrami, no pastrami, no corned beef!
Yeah, what do you think, Gerald?
I think, yeah, that's definitely what's going to happen.
He doesn't have any kind of argument, and so he's just going to connect emotionally.
Ted Cruz, if he's smart, he's going to keep facts in there, but he's also going to connect a little bit emotionally at the end and make sure he makes the point.
We want health care, not health insurance.
We're talking about the outside observer.
A little smarmy sometimes, like he's too smart for you, but sometimes he comes off really well, and I think he's done that tonight.
So I think he's done a great job, and I think if he connects, we'll be fine.
Okay, that's a good point.
Well, you're saying what they need.
I said what I think they will do, and that's good insight from Gerald Morgan, what they need to do.
Of course, as usual, no insight from Not Gay.
Jared, we are back.
Other than he's not gay.
Not gay.
Now it's time for closing statements.
Each senator will get two minutes.
We're going to begin with Senator Bernie Sanders.
Senator.
Well, let me thank Ted for being here.
Let me thank CNN for sponsoring this debate, which I thought has been a very interesting discussion.
As I see it, the great political problem that we face right now is that we have a Congress that is more interested in representing their campaign contributors and the very wealthy than the needs of ordinary Americans.
Ted ran a very vigorous campaign for president.
Congratulate him.
But Ted also received $36 million in that campaign from three billionaires.
Three billionaires.
And as a result of Citizens United, we're now looking at the Koch brothers, the second wealthiest family in America, and other billionaires literally buying elections.
And that translates into health care.
The Koch brothers were against Donald Trump, by the way.
So they're not buying elections very well.
And the pharmaceutical industry and the medical equipment suppliers than they do about the needs of the American people.
Who provides the needs of the American people, dumbass?
If you listen closely to the very fine questions that people here ask tonight, and you take a step backward, you say, whoa, what kind of craziness is this?
We are the wealthiest country in the history of the world.
And yet we have tens and tens and tens of millions of people struggling with prescription drugs, struggling with basic health care.
Yes, we can do better than that.
And then on top of all of that, we end up spending almost twice as much per capita on health care as do the people of any other country.
They don't have to protect the rest of the world, nor create the drugs that all the other countries enjoy, Bernie.
We have got to go further.
But what Ted wants to do is do away with many of the patient protection bills, provisions that were passed, pre-existing conditions.
What's the word?
What's the word?
Prozac!
Making sure that women are not discriminated against.
Making sure that young people can stay on their parents' insurance programs.
Under Ted's idea, all of that is gone.
You are on your own.
I think that is a very bad idea.
Thank you, Senator.
Senator Kerr?
Wow, that was nothing.
I want to thank Bernie for being here and for being a vigorous and honest debater.
He believes what he believes and he represents it well.
And I want to thank each of you for spending so much time addressing this critically important issue.
You know, I'd like to take a minute and actually ask the people here if the cameras could turn for a moment to the folks in the audience.
I want to ask you, how many of you here in the last six years have seen your health insurance premiums or your deductibles go up?
Let me ask another question.
How many of you here know somebody, including yourself, who's had your insurance policy cancelled in the last six years?
Oh, that's me too.
Really?
If you look at these hands across the room, this is why people are so unhappy with Obamacare.
Because it isn't working.
Because it was built on an edifice of lies.
When politicians promise the American people, if you like your plan, you can keep your plan.
If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.
And six million people get their plans canceled against their wishes.
Those are broken promises.
When the President of the United States promises your premiums will drop $2,500 and instead the average premium rises $5,000 and deductibles go up $5,000, people are hurting because of Obamacare.
And Bernie's solution...
Almost nobody, even on the left, questions the facts that Ted Cruz brings to the table.
Their criticism is he's too mechanical, not that he's wrong.
And every time they record it, his solution is more cowbell, more cowbell.
More cowbell.
There's government control that messed this all up.
And Bernie and the Democrats' solution is more cowbell, more cowbell.
Yeah, it didn't work when we said you wouldn't get your plan canceled.
Yeah, it didn't work when we said your premiums would be cut.
But give government even more power.
We can do better.
I believe we're going to honor the promises we made to the American people, and we're going to repeal what Bill Clinton called Obamacare the craziest law in the world.
Instead, we're going to give you choice, let you buy insurance across state lines, expand health savings account, make insurance portable.
Block Grant, Medicaid to the state so you can have experimentation, health savings accounts, so we can meet your needs.
Put you in charge of your health care with your doctor, not government.
That's what this election was about, and now it is incumbent on all of us, Republicans and Democrats, to deliver on the promises made to the American people.
Our thanks to Senators Cruz and Senator Sanders for joining us here tonight.
And we also want to thank our audience here, our host at my alma mater.
We're looking up whispering in my ear.
By the way, we want to thank our audience who we pulled from the intensive care ward at the Cleveland Clinic.
Okay, so let's wrap this up.
You know what's funny is we pretty much predicted the final statements to a T. We did, yes.
Between us, we're brilliant.
This is why they make Ted Cruz out to be evil.
Because Ted Ted Cruz is better than his opposition.
Ted Cruz is smarter.
He's able to provide this information.
It's very rare that you hear people...
If they fact-check Ted Cruz on one thing, it's national news because it's pretty rare.
If they fact-check Ted...
They'll probably say...
Ted Cruz will probably become a meme where he said, congratulations on your struggle with whatever it was.
Right, yeah.
Honestly, the drinking game sounds trivial, it sounds silly, but it was remarkably predictable.
And that's why we do this by design, because it is so easy to see where the left is going to come from on these.
Now, if you're going to debate a leftist, you have to assume that they know everything.
You have to assume that they know what they're talking about.
Ted Cruz here came prepared and Bernie Sanders didn't.
This is the example of where we talk about mainstream leftism.
They are so much in a bubble.
They are so much in an echo chamber.
The pussy hat economics and the women's march and the Black Lives Matter and the banning people on college campus, if you look at it, they create an environment where they can only hear from like-minded people.
They're not used to getting in the other team's title.
They're not used to actually getting out on the field and playing a single down.
And we saw that tonight.
Bernie never got to make it to a primary.
And we saw what happens.
It's the difference between kung fu, fake martial arts, and really getting to the mat, really getting in the cage.
And I think that's what we saw with Bernie Sanders.
I don't think he was equipped.
No.
No, he wasn't at all.
And it's funny that you say that they want to surround themselves with the same ideas, and they actually react violently to people who oppose those ideas.
There's a religion that kind of does that, too, and I can't remember if it's...
Oh!
Oh, Islam.
Yes, that's right.
Oh, I was going to say Mormons.
That's true.
Special underwear and everything.
But these guys don't want to hear truth.
But yet, they are the people that are teaching across this country on college campuses, the next generation.
So you've got to win the hearts and minds of the people that are about to leave college, and they cannot...
Cannot, cannot be Bernie supporters.
That's changing though.
It should.
You know why?
Because the Bernie supporters on campus and the rest have reached so far that just anyone with any common sense left is going, alright, they're calling everyone Nazis, they're burning stuff down, they're punching people in Berkeley.
This is not what I'm about.
And I think Bernie will be less and less relevant because of the extremism that is now mainstream leftism.
Yeah, they're actually protesting free speech by banning free speech.
So I don't understand how this goes.
But I think if the economy does well under Trump, you're going to see a lot fewer protests.
You're going to see a lot fewer socialists come about.
I mean, can you imagine 50 years ago somebody like Bernie Sanders?
Out there parading around and saying socialism is not a bad word.
We need to get comfortable with socialism and what that means and understand it.
Can you imagine that that's even a possibility after what we saw socialism did to the world?
I can imagine in 70-something years ago.
It's called Stalin.
Yeah, exactly.
We've been down this road before.
Do people not read history books?
Not good, Jared.
Your read.
You just didn't want me to go here.
I concur with all of the above.
Alright, so there we go.
I think it was an overall successful live stream evening.
Not Gay Jared will be driven home by G. Morgan Jr.
So, at G. Morgan Jr., at Not Gay Jared, me, at Ask Credit.
Let us know what you think.
Tomorrow we'll be uploading some clips.
I think it was a success.
I think Ted Cruz did well.
I think Bernie Sanders came ill-equipped.
This was exactly what we always predicted.
We said, I want to see Bernie versus Ted.
Socialism versus conservatism.
It was the appeal to emotion versus facts, statistics, logic.
Also, no boogers were eaten.
So I would consider tonight a success.
Go home, drive safely, enjoy your smear of pap.
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