Bernie Sanders calls for healthcare mobilization in three key states

Following is the text of a letter Sen. Bernie Sanders sent out on an emergency basis yesterday to the members of MoveOn.org.:

This weekend, I am partnering with MoveOn and going back on the road to visit states where there are Republican senators who can and should vote against the effort by Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell to throw 23 million people off of health insurance and, in the same bill, give huge tax breaks to multinational corporations and the rich.

They call it a health care bill, but how can it be a health care bill when it throws 23 million people off of insurance, cuts $834 billion from Medicaid, and defunds Planned Parenthood? God knows what the implication of this legislation will be on our children, the elderly, and those of us with chronic illnesses.

It is literally insane. I have a hard time understanding what kind of world these guys are living in sometimes.

This is a bill that impacts a sixth of the American economy and touches every single American family. Yet until this morning, they kept the bill secret, kept it hidden. And now, in the last possible second, they are going to rush it before the U.S. Senate to get a vote.

We’re going to be visiting Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia on Saturday and Sunday. If you can, please show up. But we cannot pull off this tour alone. We need your help.

Chip in $3 to MoveOn today to help them fund our tour to stop Republicans from kicking 23 million Americans off of health insurance in order to give a tax cut to the richest among us.

Time is running out. No one can sit on the sidelines. Not now. It is up to all of us to act in an unprecedented way. We have to think big and do everything humanly possible to make sure that this horrendous piece of legislation does not become law.

On this tour I will ask why it is that the United States is the only major country on earth that does not guarantee health care to all of its people as a right. I will ask why we pay far more per capita than any other nation for health care—with worse outcomes—and the highest prices for prescription drugs. And I will discuss the Medicare for all, single payer legislation that I will soon be introducing in the United States Senate.

But first, we must stop Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Thank you for joining me and MoveOn in that effort.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders