"What the American people are asking is how does it happen that we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all people as a right?" Sen. Bernie Sanders said. | Getty Sanders: Public outcry helped derail GOP health care bill

Sen. Bernie Sanders cast the GOP as "out of touch" with the public on health care Friday, citing opposition to the Obamacare repeal and replace efforts at a series of contentious town halls as a driving factor behind Republicans' inability to push through the American Health Care Act.

"I think one of the reasons this legislation went down today is that all over this country we had hundreds of thousands of people coming out to rallies," the Vermont senator told CNN's Anderson Cooper several hours after a canceled vote on the Republican health care bill.


"People began the process of fighting back. We have got to continue that," he added.

Sanders, who panned the Republican bill as merely a tax break for the rich, said that while the rising premiums that have plagued President Barack Obama's signature health care law are an issue, Congress should be focused on improving it, not replacing it.

The former Democratic presidential contender also deflected questions on whether the failed legislative bid constituted a significant loss for President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan.

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"Nobody really cares that it's a failure of Trump or a failure of Ryan," he said. "What the American people are asking is how does it happen that we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all people as a right?"

Sanders, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, also scoffed at the Trump administration's comments lamenting the difficulty of pushing a health care bill through Congress.

"I thought it was rather amusing that a few weeks ago President Trump said health care's really complicated," he said "Well, you know, for those of us who are on the health education committee, those of us who had dozens of hearings and mark-ups, yeah, health care is pretty complicated."

"Nobody knew health care could be so complicated," Trump said on Feb. 28 during a gathering with the nation's governors.