Here is an issue that all people care about, Republicans and Democrats alike, but one that is avoided by the media and all the other Pharma fueled candidates: the rising prices of medications. In this blog on Huffington Post, Senator Bernie Sanders hit the nail on the head yesterday by identifying the issue and making concrete proposals to deal with it:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
He refers to a Kaiser poll that shows that more Republicans care about the high prices of drugs than they do about repealing Obamacare.
When people get bankrupted by the high cost of vital medicines, it tends to make them passionate about the issue. Obamacare may have reduced some bankruptcies, but it has done woefully little to address drug prices. When a basic asthma medicine like albuterol inhaler jumps from $35 to $150 per vial retail and an epinephrine pen, which can save a life in an allergic reaction, has jumped to $355, the tipping point has been reached. People have to be dying. Everybody, even with insurance, is feeling it. It is time to stop the rape of the American people. Bernie has elsewhere criticized the Transpacific Trade Pact's giveaways to Big Pharma, which could have the effect of cementing astronomical drug prices in the US and even prohibit the US from doing anything about them.
Can this willingness to take it to Pharma be the thing that both draws republicans and independents to him and which distinguishes him from other democrats?