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At an rally for single payer healthcare, Sen. Bernie Sanders called out Republican hypocrites for claiming the want to cut waste, while they continue to support the wasteful US healthcare system.

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Sen. Sanders said:

The issue that we’re talking about today is about fundamental rights, and it is about ending the disgrace, the national disgrace that the United States of America remains the only major country on Earth that doesn’t doesn’t guarantee healthcare to our people as a right of citizenship….Healthcare is absolutely a human right whether you’re rich, or you’re poor, or whether you are in the middle class. Every person in this country has a right to know that when he or she gets sick they’re not going to face bankruptcy. They’re not going to delay going to the doctor because they can’t afford the deductible. That they know that they go to the doctor, go to the hospital when they need to because they are a human being entitled to healthcare. That’s point number one. Point number two. And what we say to our conservative friends who talk about waste every single day, there is no healthcare system in the world that comes close to being as wasteful and bureaucratic as our system. Why are we spending thirty percent of every healthcare dollar on administration and bureaucracy? We should be putting that money into doctors, into nurses, into disease prevention, into keeping our people healthy…So our conservative friends if you want to stop wasting money, let’s pass the cost effective way to provide universal healthcare to all our people. And that is through a single payer system.

Sen. Sanders hit on one of the great hypocrisies of the Republican Party. Republicans claim to be all about cutting waste, but they support the wasteful spending in our healthcare system. Republicans are fighting to their last breath, and turning down federal funds to expand Medicaid in states across the country. For decades Republicans have opposed any sort of reform that would lead to lower prescription drug costs. Their solution to the prescription drug cost issue was to dump more money into Medicare Part D, which will add a trillion dollars to the deficit over the next ten years. Republican thinking is so backwards on this issue that their solution to healthcare costs is to privatize Medicare. If Medicare is privatized, patients will pay more. Republicans talk about cutting waste, while at the same time they only support policies that will make healthcare more wasteful and expensive. Medicare is cheaper than the private sector system, and if Republicans were serious about reducing waste, they would calling for Medicare to be expanded to cover every American.

The problem is that Republicans aren’t serious about spending. Every time expanding Medicare is mentioned, elected +Republicans scream socialist at the top of their lungs while pocketing another campaign donation from the healthcare sector. Bernie Sanders was correct. Single payer is the solution, but our biggest problem continues to be hypocritical Republicans.