Sen. Bernie Sanders to Release Medical Debt Relief Plan
PAUL: Twelve minutes past the hour right now and Bernie Sanders this morning is unveiling the outline for his plan to take on medical debt.</s>BLACKWELL: So, the Senator argues your financial life and your future should not be destroyed because you or a family member gets sick. CNN's Ryan Nobles joins us from Washington with the few details of this plan that they put out. So what do you know?</s>RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so what happened last night, Victor, was that Bernie Sanders was participating in a town hall in South Carolina and this topic came up. The question of medical debt and how it can be a huge burden for people who are already dealing with a serious illness. He was asked directly, how would you handle this problem and this is how Sanders answered.</s>BERNIE SANDERS, 2020 DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: In another piece of legislation that we're going to be offering, we will eliminate medical debt in this country. I mean, just stop and think for a second, why should people be placed in financial duress, for what crime did you commit? You had a serious illness, right? That is not what this country should be about.</s>NOBELS: So, that raised quite a few eyebrows. This is something that Senator Sanders had not unveiled previously and his campaign said that they weren't prepared necessarily to release the full details of this plan in totality; they're still working through it. But what they did tell us today is, yes, Senator Sanders does plan to cancel at least as much as $81 billion for medical debt across the board for Americans who are dealing with that. He also wants to take on the 2005 Bankruptcy Bill that he firmly believes puts people in a cycle of debt that they can't get out from underneath and he also wants to protect the credit score of people dealing with medical debt. Sanders basically believes if you're dealing with a serious illness like cancer that could end up costing you hundreds of thousands of dollars that you shouldn't be also placed with this undue burden of medical debt on top of it. Now what Sanders and his team have not revealed yet is how they plan to pay for this $81 billion and the other costs that could go along with it. This added on to their plans for Medicare for All which would be free healthcare across the board for all Americans. They want to allow for free college tuition, also to cancel all student loan debt. The price tag keeps building up for the Sanders campaign but they do promise in the coming weeks there will be a more fulsome plan related to this particular issue of medical debt and this is something that has now become a big prority for Bernie Sanders and his campaign. Victor and Christi.</s>BLACKWELL: We will look forward to those details. Ryan Nobles, thanks so much.</s>PAUL: And there are details that need to be vetted out here. CNN's political analyst Michael Bender with us now, also a White House reporter for "The Wall Street Journal." Michael, thank you so much for being with us. So questions about $81 billion which at the end of the day does not sound like a whole lot of money for medical debt on a national level and then you've got the question of who - what is the criteria to determine whose medical debt get erased? Is it effective to release a plan without those details?</s>MICHAEL BENDER, REPORTER FOR "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": I don't think it's very effective to release the plan without those details and as Ryan sort of suggested there, it's - I don't know how effective it is to release a plan on the Friday before a big holiday weekend, as your viewers know with a major storm approaching as well. Sanders has quite a bit of ground to make up here in this democratic primary race and his path forward is not clear, frankly. "The Wall Street Journal" put out a poll this summer that painted a pretty stark picture for Sanders. It's Warren -- Elizabeth Warren in the democratic primary who is Sanders' big rival when it comes to the most liberal voters. She's the first choice among that group. Sanders is not the second choice of any of the candidates running in the field right now. It's Warren who is the second choice for Harris voters, for Buttigieg voters. And even Warren, who is seen as a liberal, you know, the main liberal competitor with Sanders, her voters say their second choice is Harris. So Sanders has quite a bit of ground to make up and this is his political calling card here, these big bold ideas, headline-grabbing ideas -- eliminating student debt, Medicare for All, now eliminating medical debt. But when there's no details behind it, when the plan comes out, his opponents are just going to use that as a way to cast doubt on whether this is a credible plan and whether it has any chance of becoming law in Washington.</s>PAUL: All right. Michael, I want to shift gears real quickly here to Madeleine Westerhout. She was a president's assistant, quick departure. It surprised a lot of people - surprised and stunned was the verbiage I heard yesterday, stunning people within the White House walls. This was a woman who was seen as a loyal aid. She held a lot of significant power in President Trump's circle. Let's listen to what he had to say about her departure.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I guess she said -- I think she said some things and she called me. She was very upset. She was very down and she said she was drinking a little bit, and she was with reporters and everything she said was off the record. That still doesn't really cover for it; mentioned a couple things about my children. But she's a very, you know, good person. And I thought -- I always felt she did a good job.</s>PAUL: So, what do you make of the consequences for her now? It seems like off-the-record conversations are not rare by any means, but because it involved his family members, that seemed to be his breaking point.</s>BENDER: Yes, that's right. Just to be clear, the off-the-record nature of this, I can't go into details what was said or whether...</s>PAUL: Yes, we don't need to.</s>BENDER: ... there was an off-the-record (inaudible), but the president certainly said here that the reason was, that he spoke that Madeleine spoke about - gossiped really about his family and that is certainly a red this president, just ask Steve Bannon about the consequences for that sort of thing. Madeleine has been a long-time assistant to President Trump from the campaign, through the transition for the first three years of the Administration which we know is a pretty significant feat given the historic turnover in this West Wing and her desk was right outside the Oval Office. She was a gatekeeper of sorts for people coming in and out which made her really one of the most powerful and frankly least known members of this West Wing. I just wanted to add one other thing here, we're talking about off- the-record and your viewers may wonder what is the point of going to - talking to people off the record if it can't be shared with readers, if it can't be shared with viewers and I think there's a good question there and a fair debate. This happens a lot on the campaign trail or on foreign trips with the president or in small town, New Jersey when he's in Bedminister.</s>PAUL: Yes.</s>BENDER: And off the record back and forth with staff. It gives you an opportunity to kind of understand these people deeper and understand where they're coming from and that is - and in that sense with that context you're able to give viewers and readers really a richer report of the motivations and context of the White House or the candidate or whoever you're reporting on.</s>PAUL: Right, without compromising any - without compromising anything, yes. Michael Bender, appreciate your insights on this. Thank you, sir.</s>BENDER: OK, thank you.</s>BLACKWELL: So President Trump says a new round of tariffs on Chinese goods will go into effect tomorrow. How the president is responding to growing concerns that his trade war could lead to a recession.</s>PAUL: And following the protests in Hong Kong, police are pushing back this morning. Protesters who have set fires in the streets, who are pointing lasers to trying to disorient officers, we're going to take you live to Hong Kong. Stay close.