Eager to rumble, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders jumped headlong into Sunday night’s presidential debate by tangling over who’s tougher on gun control and sketching sharply differing visions for the future of health care in America.
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Sanders argued that his opponent’s argument was “disingenuous”, pointing to his D- rating from the NRA, and said all along he had said he would “re-look” at the issue.
So under his plan every man, woman, and child, would get health care as a right.
Clinton sounded off on overhauling the existing healthcare plan, warning that tearing down the Affordable Care Act and starting from scratch is the wrong call. She found herself defending the charge made (by her daughter!) that Bernie Sanders would dismantle ObamaCare.
A new NBC/Wall Street Journal national poll on Sunday showed Clinton leading Sanders 59 percent to 34 percent, with O’Malley, at 2 percent. “We’ve had one good day over 36 years and I think we need more good days before we move more rapidly toward any kind of normalisation”, Clinton said.
“People may remember that I took on the healthcare/insurance industry back in the ’90s”, Clinton said. He alleges that the system, including the US Congress – and including Ms Clinton – has been corrupted by big money, the banks and the lobbyists. Clinton characterized this as reckless and playing into the hands of Republicans who want to do away with the whole thing.
Video: Who is Hillary Clinton?
The pair, along with former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, took the stage in Charleston, South Carolina as frontrunner Clinton feels the heat from challenger Sanders in a tightening nomination race. Clinton has made the issue a central theme of her campaign, citing it as one of the major differences between the candidates.
Noting that Mrs Clinton was 50 percentage points ahead of him when his presidential campaign began, he added: “Guess what: In Iowa, New Hampshire, the race is (now) very, very close”.
In a debate that was spikier than those before it, Mr Sanders said Ms Clinton had not only taken campaign donations from Goldman Sachs, which recently has had to pay a $5m fine for malfeasance, but also $600,000 in speaker fees in a single year.
He painted Mrs Clinton as a defender of the status quo who accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees as a former secretary of state from Wall Street backers. The same can be said of Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for all” plan, unveiled Sunday just hours before the Democratic debate. However, Sanders downplayed these accusations and just said that it was not “factual”, CNN reported. She wants to build on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which Obama signed into law during the great recession to prevent banks from taking huge risks. Clinton asked. Later, she brought up the ongoing water crisis in Flint, Mich., where the mayor and city council have been roundly criticized for failing to swiftly address the lead contamination of the black-majority city’s drinking water.
Hillary Clinton only discussed what role her husband would play in her administration, saying: “Well, it’ll start at the kitchen table, we’ll see how it goes from there”.
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“I was asked a question …”
