Joe Biden is the man Democrats want to take out President Donald Trump, but he doesn’t get a pass on key questions important to progressives.

“What are you going to do?” Sen. Bernie Sanders defiantly asked Biden Wednesday about health care, income inequality, mass incarceration, criminal justice and other key campaign issues.

Why would Biden even bother answering any of that since he’s practically the Democratic nominee? Because although Sanders may soon be gone, the problems Americans face are getting worse.

What would Biden do on 3 key issues?

There is a huge difference between Biden and Sanders, not just in approach and style but in substance.

The former vice president is a Washington insider, and some of the policies he has championed are now afflicting too many Americans.

Sanders will no doubt take Biden to task for those things during Sunday’s presidential debate, which was initially set to be in Phoenix but will now be held in Washington, D.C. as coronavirus precaution. That includes:

1. Mass incarceration

It’s a fact that the U.S. locks up more people than any other country in the world. Sanders is seeking sweeping justice reform, including rolling back long prison sentences, ending cash bail, legalizing marijuana and banning private, for-profit prisons.

Guess who contributed to that problem? Yep. Biden.

As chairman of Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden led the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. It established mandatory minimum sentences and other harsh sentencing laws.

That act is directly linked to the country’s huge mass incarceration population. A disproportionate number of those behind bars are minorities. A whopping 37% of the country’s prison population are African Americans, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. (African Americans comprise about 13% of the U.S. population.)

What would Biden do? He has backpedaled and now wants to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences, decriminalize the use of cannabis and automatically expunge prior cannabis-use convictions. His overall plan includes education and mental health programs to deal with the “underlying factors.” He wants $20 billion in grants to states to reduce incarceration and crime through illiteracy and other programs that are correlated with incarceration.

Good enough? It’s certainly better than tough-on-crime laws that have left mostly minorities behind bars.

2. Health care

The U.S. is the only major industrialized country without health care guaranteed as a human right. Thirty million Americans are uninsured, Sanders says. He proposes Medicare for all.

What would Biden do? He would protect and build on Obamacare to give Americans the opportunity to buy a public health insurance option like Medicare. He says his plan won’t force tens of million people out of their existing coverage. Choice is good. But what’s wrong with looking for ways to ensure everyone?

3. Immigration

Trump has made legal and illegal immigration the cornerstone of his presidency, plunging the country into perpetual social outcries and legal fights over his border wall and migrant family separation.

Sanders proposes an immigration reform with a path to citizenship for those already in the country illegally. He would decriminalize border crossing, meaning he would make it a civil matter and push Congress to repeal 8 US Code Section 1325.

What would Biden do? He, too, supports a comprehensive immigration reform that provides a path to citizenship, legalizes "dreamers" and reforms the asylum system. Biden said he doesn’t believe crossing the border should be decriminalized, though he says he would make sure U.S. immigration law is enforced humanely. He would not separate children from families.

But wait. Biden was Obama’s No. 2 guy when Democrats also controlled the House and Senate and ditched immigration reform for Obamacare.

Yep. Biden and Obama chose to spend their political capital on health-care reform, instead. They clearly failed on immigration.

Let's not forget that Obama deported so many that he became to be known as the deporter-in-chief.And he had to use an executive order to protect dreamers from deportation instead of doing so by passing an actual law.

Dreamers are the young immigrants brought to the country as children and whom Trump wants removed from the country, too. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on the legitimacy of the Obama executive order any day.

Erika Andiola, a Phoenix dreamer and activist, summed up the sentiment about Biden best.

“During the Obama era many of us were also suffering. Yes, we are suffering even more under Trump (so don't even go there),” she said on Twitter Tuesday after Sanders’ losses in the latest primaries. “But to tell someone who has so much hope for a better future to shut up and accept to go back to a little less suffering IS NOT THE WAY TO DO THIS.”

No doubt, Biden can take Trump out in November and that would be good for the nation. But the former vice president must know that nobody should settle for a “little less suffering.”

Elvia Díaz is an editorial columnist for The Republic and azcentral. Reach her at 602-444-8606 or elvia.diaz@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter, @elviadiaz1.