Bernie Sanders pledges that every campaign staffer will be able to keep their healthcare plan through November
- Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has pledged to keep every campaign staffer on their healthcare plan through November, Jack Califano, the campaign's deputy distributed organizing director, announced on Twitter.
- "We're all crying," Califano tweeted. "I am so proud to work for this man."
- Sanders dropped out of the 2020 presidential race on Wednesday, making former Vice President Joe Biden the presumptive Democratic nominee.
- A veteran progressive lawmaker, Sanders declared healthcare a human right and built his grassroots campaign around overhauling the US healthcare system and implementing a single-payer, "Medicare for All" national health insurance program.
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Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has pledged to keep every campaign staffer on their healthcare plan through November, Jack Califano, the campaign's deputy distributed organizing director, announced on Twitter.
"We're all crying," Califano tweeted. "I am so proud to work for this man."
Sanders dropped out of the 2020 presidential race on Wednesday, making former Vice President Joe Biden the presumptive Democratic nominee.
In an address from his home in Burlington, Vermont, Sanders said his path to the nomination had become "virtually impossible" and that the country should stay focused on handling the coronavirus pandemic as it sweeps the nation.
"I cannot in good conscience continue to mount a campaign that cannot win and which would interfere with the important work ahead of all of us," he said.
A veteran progressive lawmaker, Sanders built his campaign on calling for a "political revolution" and skewering the political establishment on both the left and the right. His 2020 presidential bid built on his 2016 primary race against Hillary Clinton, during which he established himself as the most prominent national voice for the populist, progressive left and an outspoken advocate for the working class.
Declaring healthcare a human right - and not a privilege - was the centerpiece of Sanders' campaign, which also called for overhauling the US healthcare system and implementing a "Medicare for All," single-payer national health insurance program.
The Vermont senator also frequently excoriates the health insurance and pharmaceutical lobbying industries, accusing them of "ripping off the American people" by valuing profits over lives.
In addition to universal healthcare, Sanders has long championed policies like tuition-free public college and the Green New Deal, a plan to transition the US to 100% clean and renewable energy within the next decade.
Sanders hit the ground running with a series of wins in early primary and caucus states, but he failed to pick up momentum on Super Tuesday and subsequently lost delegate-rich states like Michigan and Florida to Biden, significantly narrowing his path to the nomination.
He also suffered from low turnout among young voters in the 2020 campaign season.
Voters between the ages of 18 and 29 were a huge part of why he picked up momentum in 2016, and Sanders conceded that the turnout this time around wasn't enough to help him secure the Democratic nomination.