U.S. presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders coming to Windsor
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Bernie Sanders is bringing his U.S. presidential campaign to Windsor.
The Vermont senator will join a group of American Type 1 diabetics heading to Canada later this month in search of cheaper insulin.
Sanders made a similar trip in 1999, when he crossed the border from Vermont with a group of breast cancer patients to buy drugs that cost a mere 10 per cent of what those patients had to pay in their own state.
“Now, 20 years later, we are basically in the same place — we are going to take a group of people from Detroit into Windsor, Ont., which is right over the border, to purchase the drugs they need to save their lives at a greatly reduced cost,” he told CNN on Thursday.
Sanders, a top contender in the race for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination, will travel to Windsor on July 28 with a caravan led by the group Insulin4All.
He’s making the trip to highlight the disparity in prices between the private healthcare system in the U.S. and Canada’s publicly funded model.
For decades, Sanders has been calling for a national healthcare system in his country.
A key pillar in his 2020 campaign is “Medicare For All,” a government-funded system that would give healthcare coverage to all Americans and permanent citizens. The Medicare system in the U.S. currently only provides health insurance to people 65 and older.
On Thursday, Sanders posted videos of himself from the last several decades repeatedly making the call for that national system and arguing healthcare is a human right.
“You can call me a lot of things but you cannot call me inconsistent,” he wrote. “Our country must join every other major nation of the world and guarantee health care as a human right. I hope we are not going to keep debating this for another 50 years.”
Sanders also repeatedly targets pharmaceutical companies that make astronomical profits while demanding prices for prescriptions drugs that many people can’t afford.
A vial of insulin costs about US$340 in the United States, roughly 10 times the price in Canada.
“This month we’re going back to Canada with diabetics,” Sanders announced Thursday on Twitter. “Insulin costs over $300 in the US. In Canada, the same exact drug costs about $30. We can’t wait for drug companies to lower prices. Americans need relief now!”
Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) responded on social media that residents of her state regularly travel to Windsor to buy insulin.
“This is what Michigan residents do all the time when they can’t afford their insulin,” she wrote. “Our system is broken. Thank you @BernieSanders for shedding light to this crisis facing our families.”
Drug tourism has become a growing trend as drug prices continue to increase in the U.S., with some Americans rationing supplies for fear of running out and not being able to afford more.
Late last month, a group of Type 1 diabetics from Minnesota crossed the border to buy insulin in London, Ont.
Americans are allowed to take home a three-month supply of medicine. A few states have also passed legislation allowing for wholesale or individual imports of medication.
Since insulin does not require a prescription in Canada, there is no way to track how much Americans are buying and taking back home.
Sanders said the difference between each nation’s healthcare systems is the reason for the skyrocketing price of drugs in the U.S. compared to much lower costs in Canada.
“Canada has a nationalized, single-payer system that allows them to negotiate much better prices with the drug companies,” Sanders said in the CNN interview. “In our country, it is a much different story.”
Sanders’ trip to Windsor comes on the eve of the Democrats’ second round of debates in Detroit. With two dozen hopefuls vying to be the party’s flag bearer against incumbent Republican President Donald Trump in 2020, the debating will be divided over two nights, July 30 and 31.
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