Who Will Solve Mass-Incarceration and Health Care?

Health Care must finally be a RIGHT -- and we must end the war on drugs, says presidential candidate, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.

Senator Sander vows to end the war on drugs, and put an end to private prisons. He also advocates for prisoner education and a return of voting rights. Drug addiction should (quickly) land you in a treatment center, not jail.

This is not what Hillary Clinton advocates -- her view on Criminal Justice Reform is very limited in comparison. Her health care plan includes keeping and improving Obamacare, if she can get the US Congress to go along with that idea.

Bernie Sanders is a "Revolutionary" leader --- He counts on the backing of millions of people in America, who are fed up with "establishment politics" and "establishment economics" and a lack of accountable JUSTICE.

Listen to what Bernie Sanders is saying at rallies across the USA --- to a total of more than 360,000 people over the course of six months! No other candidate in history has turned out this many people excited to get behind a real leader!

ON HEALTH CARE: Clinton fails to address the fact that private insurance-industry based "Obamacare" is still an illness-for-profit system ... and the fact that almost 30 million people are still without any health care in states that have refused to expand Medicaid. 

Going to a national Medicare-for-all system would cut $billions of dollars worth of corporate paperwork and bloated CEO/executive and investment profits out of the current insurance-based system.

Middle Class families would no longer be faced with health care premiums with high co-pays they can not afford and all people would finally have health care as a RIGHT! 

READ MORE: 

Doctors and Nurses want single-payer health care, they are fighting for it.

ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE: Listen to what Bernie Sanders had to say in 1991, when he spoke out against stronger prison sentences.

In 1991, Bernie Sanders spoke out against stronger prison sentences.

Crime, Punishment, and Poverty

Then-Senator Joe Biden scored a career-defining victory in 1994, when he managed to shepherd get-tough-on-crime legislation through Congress for the Clinton administration. 

"Hillary and I both feel a special indebtedness for the friendship and the leadership of Joe Biden," Bill Clinton said during a November 1994 campaign rally in Wilmington, Del., the evening before the midterm elections. "Without him, there would have been no crime bill this year. And because of him, lives will be saved and children will grow up safer and this country will be a less violent place in the years ahead. We are in his great and abiding debt."

Biden's bill put over 100,000 new cops on the street and spent $9.7 billion on the construction of new prisons. The wide-ranging bill implemented a host of liberal policies, including an assault weapon ban and the Violence Against Women Act. But it also expanded the number of crimes that qualify as death penalty cases, encouraged states to keep inmates locked in jail, criminalized gang membership, eliminated Pell Grants for inmates, and put in place mandatory drug testing for people on supervised release. States had to implement policies that greatly reduced opportunities for parole in order to qualify for the new prison funding. ----- Mother Jones (Aug. 7, 2015)

Suddenly, a much larger population of young people began arriving at prisons to serve mandatory, long sentences on drug-related charges. They also came mostly from low-income families, unable to hire a private attorney.

As the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden played a major role in passing mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines; and he created the position of "drug czar," a key step in the continued "war on drugs" initiated during the Reagan Republican administration.

It must have been a little awkward when his son, Hunter failed a drug test and was booted from the military. If Biden's son had actually been caught in possession of a small bag of cocaine, he might have gone to prison for 87 months, which is the average federal sentence for drug possession. ---- Mother Jones (Oct. 17, 2014)

The Republican Party candidates for president appear to have zero interest in prison reform, and most of their big-ticket campaign donors include money from prison mega-corporations. Hillary Clinton's campaign has also taken money from the prison industry.

Presidential candidate, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders is on the record for saying he would end the war on drugs --- and put a stop to privatized for-profit-prisons. He has also introduced legislation to reinstate federal-education Pell Grants for inmates. 

After interrupting a couple of his speeches to emphasize the urgency of racism and racial injustice, several prominent voices in the Black Lives Matter movement are now pleased with Senator Sanders' comprehensive racial justice platform.

The platform focuses on different forms of violence against people of color in the United States: physical violence from law enforcement and extremist vigilantes, the political violence of voter suppression, the legal violence of the War on Drugs and mass incarceration, and the economic violence of crushing poverty. 

"We must commit ourselves to a multiracial political revolution," says Symone Sanders, the voice of Bernie Sanders' national campaign.

Senator Sanders spoke directly to residents of Charleston, SC on Aug. 22, 2015, two months after a racially-motivated young person sat down with members of a congregation in a historically black church, prayed with them and then murdered nine of them. 

"This campaign is about bringing people together," Sanders told a crowd that often rose to their feet to cheer his message. "Because when you bring the middle class and working class together, when you bring white and black and Hispanic, Native-American, men and women, straight and gay, native-born and immigrants -- When we bring our people together there is nothing that can stop the people from reforming this country."

The idea of a single-payer health care system that eliminates insurance companies by way of an expansion of Medicare for all drew a very positive response. "The day for insurance companies has come and gone," he said. "Health care should be a right in this country, and not a privilege." 

Sanders' campaign lays out several proposals to address racism, and the many forms of racial injustice that exist in the United States. He advocates passing "ban the box" laws to prevent hiring discrimination; an end to the "war on drugs" and for-profit prisons. He would also restore the gutted protections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

On the other side of the spectrum, Republican candidate Gov. Scott Walker offered only vague arguments for more police training and unnamed "consequences" if they cross the line on the use of force. "I think in general, if anyone focuses on racial discord we're going to get more," he said during the first Republican presidential candidate debates.

Given any opportunity, all GOP candidates would repeal the Patient Protection, Affordable Care Act -- commonly known as Obamacare, and none of them would contemplate a national health care system to address the 40 million people, who would be left without health care.

Hillary Clinton has talked about police brutality, and acknowledged the need for change but has not offered any solutions. Clinton has committed her support to "Obamacare" that offers tax credits to subsidize the growing costs of health care insurance.

Dr. Ben Carson, the only African-American running for president, largely dismissed the Black Lives Matter movement, calling it "silly" and warned against getting "caught up in all the divisive rhetoric and terminology and political correctness."

The most vocal of the Republican candidates, Donald Trump said he would "give the police more power."