Rand Paul to Bernie Sanders: Collective Bargaining Only Works With Voluntary Groups, "Not The Gulag"

CNN's Erin Burnett asks Rand Paul about his claim that large associations of people should pool their risk and purchase health insurance together. She says, by that logic, why not pool everyone in the country together in a single-payer system in order to maximally distribute risk. Paul responds:





SEN. RAND PAUL: It is an artifact of tax policy dating back to World War II that said insurance is going to be tied to employment. If we weren't doing that -- If we said to the people in the individual market, to the plumber, for example, you can join the Chamber of Commerce. You can join the Plumber's Association. You can join the 'Individuals that want to group together' association, and buy your insurance as a group, you could get a way out of that individual conundrum and get a group policy. Most group policies have things like pregnancy.



If you work for General Motors, my guess is pregnancy is automatically in your insurance because you are a big group and you have the leverage to demand from your insurance company--



ERIN BURNETT, CNN: So why not just have the biggest group of all, and have insurance for everybody?



RAND PAUL: Well, Socialism is not a good idea. I know you can ask my friend Senator Sanders. But Socialism is an utter failure, it leads to poverty. Look at Venezuela. It is one of the most resource-rich countries in all of the world. The average person there lost 20 pounds last year, not through choice, but from virtual starvation.



BURNETT: You did make a great argument for nationalized health care. You said the bigger the group, the lower the cost, so I'm taking your argument to its logical conclusion.



PAUL: No, no, I'm talking about voluntary groups, not the gulag -- when people join together, large associations with a good idea. Collective bargaining is not a bad idea. Labor, getting together. But that's not the government doing it. That's just people getting together, in order to have more leverage in the marketplace.



So I'm all for trying to balance the equation with insurance companies. I think they have too much power, but I am not willing to have the government break them up.

Sen. Bernie Sanders joins Burnett right after Paul, and responded thusly