Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said if Republicans in Congress vote to repeal and replace Obamacare, then "thousands of Americans will die." But when asked Wednesday by CNN's Jake Tapper where that statistic came from, Sanders refused to say.
"If you are old and you have no health insurance, if you're 55, 60 years of age and you have no health insurance and you're sick, you will die. You may die because you can't get to a doctor when you should," Sanders said Wednesday on "The Lead."
Sanders' comment came just one day after he made a similar comment to reporters on the heels of the independent Congressional Budget Office releasing a report in which it estimated that the Republican-proposed American Health Care Act would result in 24 million Americans losing their health insurance coverage by 2026.
I have no hesitation to say this: If this legislation is passed, and millions of people are thrown off their health insurance, not able to get to a doctor when they must, thousands of Americans will die. That’s what this legislation is about. It must be defeated and I hope there is enough sense among some of the Republicans to go against it.
Tapper asked Sanders Wednesday to reveal where he got the estimate that "thousands" will die if Obamacare is repealed — and it seems as though either Sanders didn't know, or just refused to say.
I get that estimate from the fact that studies have been done that people who do not have health insurance, who do not go to the doctor when they should, or do not go to the hospital when they need to go, in fact, die. And thousands of people die every year because they don't have health insurance. And if you throw 24 million people off health insurance, there is no doubt that many thousands of people die.
