Sanders is an independent member of the U.S. Senate from the state of Vermont. He was first elected to the Senate in 2006. Sanders calls himself a democratic socialist and is a member of the Senate Democratic Caucus. Sanders made his formal announcement for the Democratic nomination at a press conference on April 30, 2015. His office streamed the announcement live using Periscope, a social media service which allows the streaming of video from smartphones. Bernie Sanders campaign released a statement on January 21, 2016 criticizing Hillary Clinton’s healthcare plan for being vague. Her website promises she’ll ‘expand affordable coverage, slow the growth of overall health care costs and make it possible for providers to deliver the very best care to patients. Sanders defended his healthcare proposal that includes “Medicare for all” again January 18, 2016, in an interview with CBS News. Sanders said, "One out of five people in this country cannot even fill the prescription that their doctor writes for them - that's called rationing. The truth of the matter is that our health care outcomes are not necessarily any better than many of the other countries who are spending significantly less per capital than we are." During the fourth Democratic presidential primary debate on January 17, 2016, Sanders reacted to Clinton’s comments about his healthcare plan and his Medicaid-for- all …show more content…
If my memory is correct, I think when we saw children coming from these horrendous, horrendously violent areas of Honduras and neighboring countries, people who are fleeing drug violence and cartel violence, I thought it was a good idea to allow those children to stay in this country. That was not, as I understand it, the secretary's position. In terms of 2007 immigration reform, yeah, I did vote against it. I voted against it because the Southern Poverty Law Center, among other groups, said that the guest-worker programs that were embedded in this agreement were akin to slavery. Akin to slavery, where people came into this country to do guest work were abused, were exploited, and if they stood up for their rights, they'd be thrown out of this country. So it wasn't just me who opposed it. It was LULAC, one of the large Latino organizations in this country. It was the AFL-CIO. It was some of the most progressive members of the United States Congress who opposed it for that reason. But we are where we are right now. And where we are right now is we have got to stand up to the Trumps of the world who are trying to divide us up. What we have to do right now is bring our people together and understand that we must provide a path towards citizenship for 11