 this morning of what I hope will be an interesting discussion. God only knows there's a lot that's happening, right? I wish we could live in war-warring times, but that is not the day to catch. What I hope we will do will go any place that people want. People can ask questions or make comments. And I hope during the course of the discussion you will talk a little bit what you perceive to be happening, not just in general, but to your own lives and the lives of the people that you know. One of the points that I often make is sometimes we forget that we live in the wealthiest country in the history of the world. That's where we live, but we forget about it, because when we look out into our communities, we see a lot of people who are hurting, and in my view, hurting unnecessarily. We have too many seniors living in poverty. We have too many seniors struggling with the high cost of prescription drugs. We have too many seniors paying too much for housing or unable to afford to heat their homes in the wintertime. We have too many seniors struggling with the high cost of health care and all of what that is about. But seniors do not only worry about their own lives, they worry about their kids, and they worry about their grandchildren. They worry about whether or not their children are going to have as high a standard of living as they do. They wonder about whether their grandchildren are going to be able to afford to go to college. They worry about what climate change is doing to the planet and whether their grandchildren will live in a planet that is healthy and that is habitable. So there are a whole lot of issues to be talked about today. And I want to begin, and I'm going to chat in a few minutes, but I want to begin by introducing to you folks who will say a few words who are very, very knowledgeable on senior issues. And with the light that I have with us today, Greg Marshallden, who, as you know, has been one of the leaders of the AARP here in the state of Vermont for many, many years. Rita Copeland, who is with the Twin Valley Senior Center and Beth Stern, who is with the Central Vermont Council on Aging. So let me begin the discussion. What we'll do is hear from these guys. I'll say a few words. Then we'll open it up to your questions and your comments. That sound all right? OK. Let me begin with Greg. Greg, do you want to come up here or do you want to say that? Why don't you come up here, Greg? Hey, Senator Sanders, I just did a quick anecdote. I was on a phone call with a friend, an old college friend last night. He lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. And he had just seen a poll that shows the most popular senator in the United States of America happens to be. This guy wants his steadfast, strong support for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Older Americans Act fighting for Vermont Thursday in the day out. The answer is definitely yes to those questions. But maybe more importantly is this, because Senator Sanders has shown up in community after community after community for older Vermonters down for decades. And he does what I think all of us expect our elected officials to do, which has come talk to the people that he represents. We're extremely fortunate to be able to have the kind of access that the senator has let us have for many years. And he deserves a big round of applause. I just have two quick things so that you can get the questions. A couple things AARP working on, one in the state and one at the federal level. The first is here in the state. We're pushing hard. I think some of you may have made some phone calls and sent some emails for us. We're trying to cut Social Security taxes for people that are paying state taxes here in Vermont. There are only one or four states that do this. It's time for us not to do this anymore. And there are a couple reasons why. About 7 in 10 people over 65 in Social Security, that is their primary source of income. We are looking at about 50,000 people that really live on the edges where this money will really make a difference. We're not going to be able to get everybody down right away, although AARP is going to come back and try to finish the job over the next few years. But we want to start this year by focusing on the low and low moderate income seniors who are really feeling the squeeze. As the senator said, it's folks with high prescription drug costs, high medical costs, rent, mortgages. We need to provide some relief. And there is no reason why in the state of Vermont we should be taxing senior citizens' Social Security benefits, not at all. If you have not contacted your legislators somewhere here, I would encourage you to do so. We think we have a very good opportunity to get this done this session. It's going to make a big difference. And then we'll come back and talk to you later as we try to get the whole deal done for everybody. Secondly, AARP's state directors will all be in Washington DC next week. I'll be meeting with the senator's staff on a number of issues. But one of the things I want to point to is the Older Americans Act. And my organization is in the senator's strong support for that over the years. We have senior Senate folks in this panel who know this work in more detail than I do because they live it every single day. But our nutrition programs, meals on wheels, support for senior centers, Medicaid transportation, all of this stuff is in the balance. Now, you don't need to call Senator Sanders and remind him to support the Older Americans Act. He's the senior strong supporter of the United States Congress. If you have friends in some neighboring states, give them a call because we really need this program funded. We need it supported, the SNAP program, particularly these nutrition programs for low income seniors are a lifeline. We can have our direct service providers on the ground with the resources that they need to provide the services, particularly to older and more isolated senior citizens. We're gonna be in real trouble. We are the second oldest state in the nation that is not gonna change in anybody's lifetime in this room. So we need to start doing a better job of supporting these programs and calling for increases in them. Thanks for having me today, Senator. I look forward to your time. Correct. Let me introduce Rita Copeland from Twin Valence Senior Center. Let's say that was pretty hard for me to follow. I wanted to, I'm deaf. Can you hear me better now? That was pretty hard to follow. You took all of my ideas. I did want to point out, and I do want to thank Senator Sanders, Congressman Welch and Senator Leahy for all they do in Washington for us. It's terrific. Being a senior senator director, which I have been for the last eight, nine years, I have firsthand knowledge of what is out there, and it's not good. We do Meals on Wheels. We're a very small center located in East Montailleur. We cover six towns, Woodbury, Calais, East Montailleur, Plainfield, Cabot, and Marshfield. We started with the program of the Meals on Wheels where we cook at the center. I have wonderful dedicated volunteers that go out many weather and deliver these meals to the homebound seniors. While they're doing that, they are doing a well-being check on these seniors. The seniors sometimes don't have anybody they talk to day after day, so they really take and talk to their friendly drivers and throw them all off on course and try to get their meals out every time. That's great. A couple of things. The Meals on Wheels program is very hard to operate because we do not get the financial backing. We produce probably 200 meals a week to the homebound seniors, and we serve between 25 and 35 meals at the center three times a week. These are all home cooked meals that we're seen by our registered diaries. We get reimbursed for those meals from Central Monk Council on Aging, who are federal and state. Three dollars, we just got a raise in seven years. Four cents, 54 cents a meal. It cost us about $9.58 to produce those meals, and that does not include the volunteer drivers who we reimbursed 50 and a half cents per mile. They use their own car, their own gas. So you can see there's a big discrepancy there. We do not refuse serving anybody that's qualified for Meals on Wheels because of their ability to donate toage the meals. And so therefore that makes it even harder to keep ahead. We also have seniors who come, we do not charge dues, which is probably a little weird and you think, wonder why, we do not charge our dues at our center. And the reason for that is people cannot afford it. You're there to help the seniors off of the programs, keep them healthy, make sure they get exercised. And so the people that come to the center cannot afford to pay dues and then pay for these glasses. So therefore we reach out, do a lot of fundraising and try to make up the difference. Of course our budget never, are always short at the end of the year with our budget. But those are things that really hurt us trying to help everyone out there. In the six towns that we cover, I know I looked it up and from the 2010 census, I believe we have over a thousand, a thousand one-nineteen I believe it was, of people 62 and over. There's no transportation in these rural towns. We do have a bus that goes to pick seniors up, brings them to the center, the ones that want to come and takes them home three times a week. And the isolation, the physical exercise out there, you know, it's hard for these home-balancing seniors. And so we're trying to do everything we can. I have a lot about which to do in these little towns and I'm trying to do that. But again, I'm only one person that operates the center along with the volunteers and there isn't funding out there to meet the higher resistance or just the help that we need. So I'm going to just say that, Bernie, keep going. Keep going, you're going to keep going. And Rita touched on some of the issues that I want to bring up later. The issue of isolation, yeah. There are a lot of seniors who have lost their long life long spouses who are now struggling. There are, believe it or not, in the United States of America, as Rita just said, elderly people who do not have enough food to eat and meals on wheels is an extraordinary program. And what an embarrassment it is that in our state or in this country, there are waiting lines for people to get meals on wheels, which provides them often with the one nutritious meal they get in a day. That should not be going on in America. Now let me introduce Beth Stern and Beth is with the Central Vermont Council on aging. Beth? It's really hard to follow all of these folks. Thank you for being here. And I want to thank Senator Sanders for having this senior town meeting. What a great way to bring people together. And what I'm hoping is it's going to be a snowy day later on. Could be. Greg and I were talking earlier and it turns out we're both going to be on the same flight to Washington on Monday morning at six o'clock, going down there and advocating for services for older Vermonters and older adults in the US. And I also just want to reiterate that when I'm on a national board and when I go down there and I go meet with the staff or with the senators or our congressmen, all the other people on the board of directors from around the country want to come with me because we have the most supportive congressional delegation in the country. It's really not hard work to go down there and talk to them about the Older Americans Act programs or services procedures because they already get it and they're on our side. So we just want to thank them for that. In the state of Vermont, we've really prioritized the system of aiming to help people stay in the setting of their choice. Most people want to stay home as they get older and we're really working hard to make sure that that's possible. At Central Vermont Council on Aging, our services are designed to help just that. Through our staff and our partners, Rita being a prime example of our meal site partners, we offer all kinds of things including the nutrition programs granted not funded well enough and Rita's absolutely right. We gave her a four cent raise after seven years. Part of that has to do with the sequestration cuts that we had several years ago. We have not bounced back from that yet. We also offer welcome to Medicare classes, Tai Chi. I know that one of our Tai Chi volunteers is right here in front. Bone builders, powerful tools for caregivers, general information on all kinds of services and benefit programs. For example, the Three Squares Vermont that Greg mentioned earlier and actually there are some brochures out on the table if you're interested in that. And also opportunities to volunteer or to be helped by volunteers. As Rita talked about isolation, one of the ways that people can get involved as they get older is to volunteer. And we know that that actually helps your health status if you're giving back to others. So we have all kinds of volunteer opportunities and also if you know people who need somebody to help them as a volunteer we can help facilitate that. The challenges we face include uncertain funding at the state and federal level. We just heard about the budget being passed at the federal level for this fiscal year which started last October. So when you're running an agency and trying to pay your staff and your contractors and you don't know what your budget's gonna be, it makes it really challenging to plan and be creative and be innovative. Vermont, as we've heard, has a growing population of older Vermonters. It's the fastest growing demographic in the state. 23 Vermonters turn 65 every day. And this group is gonna grow by more than 60% over the next 10 years. So just think about that. That's a lot of people. Another challenge we face is ageism and that's the idea that people are limited by their age and that discrimination accompanies that. And that adds another layer to our already underfunded and overburdened system. So at our agency we're working hard to reframe how we talk about aging and how we work with people who are aging and to truly look for opportunities rather than only focus on the negative issues. So our strength in Vermont is really our people, our staff, our volunteers, our community partners, our congressional delegation. Please utilize us, call the senior helpline. I've got brochures on the table in the back. Again, there's agency brochures, there's three squares brochures. There's even a little postcard about a fundraiser we're having on May 4th. So if you wanna hear some really funny stories about aging, you can come to the Barry Hopper House. It's a shameless plug. But that's what we have to do. The senior center has to do fundraising, the agencies have to do fundraising. We all have to piece together the funding to serve folks who need it. So I'll be here if people have questions afterwards. I really appreciate this and we'll turn it back to the senator. Thank you. Not only for being here today, but for the great work they do. Let me take a few minutes to give you kind of an overview of what is going on in Washington. A perspective you're not gonna see too often on television. There is a very fundamental debate taking place in Washington right now regarding the future of this country. And it is a debate which really does not reflect where the American people are. When you see a debate, they say, well maybe half the people are here and half the people are there and there's a clash of ideas. That really is not what's going on. Because despite what you may see on television, on major issue after major issue, more or less the American people kind of agree. But the dynamics of American politics today is that what goes on in Washington is not a reflection of what ordinary Americans want and believe. It is a reflection of what billionaires and wealthy campaign contributors want. Give you some examples. In the last year, were Republicans a variety of legislation that would throw up to 32 million Americans off of the health insurance they currently have. Almost nobody in America thinks that that makes sense. Legislation and that legislation was defeated by one vote. What was not defeated, and when you hear Beth and Rita talk about the need for funding for nutrition programs or basic needs for seniors, keep in mind that a tax bill was recently passed a few months ago, which will drive up at the end of 10 years the deficit by $1.4 trillion while giving 83% of the benefits to the top 1%. Now at a time when we already have massive income in wealth inequality, where if you can believe it, the three wealthiest people in America now own more wealth than the bottom half of the American people. Three Americans, most Americans, the overwhelming majority of Americans do not believe that we should be giving hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars of tax breaks to the top 1%. How did that come? And then, you see, then after that is done and the deficit goes up, and Paul Ryan, who is the speaker of the House, who I think is beginning to catch on that that agenda is not what the people of Wisconsin or America want, as announced, he's not running for reelection, because this is the agenda and this is the plan. The plan is this comes from anybody here who know who the Koch brothers are. The Koch brothers are the second wealthiest family in America, they're worth, I don't give a take, $100 billion, hard to keep up with them. What's a billion here or a billion there? And they have put over the years billions of dollars into the political process and this is their theory. And you think I'm kidding you, I am not. Their theory is, their ideology is, what their belief is, is that government should play a very, very minuscule role in American society. And essentially, what they believe is not that we should cut Social Security in Medicare, a lot of people in Washington believe we should cut Social Security in Medicare, they believe we should eliminate Social Security in Medicare. What freedom to their mind is, is the end of government programs. When you are on Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security, you are not free. They believe that we should eliminate public education, move toward charter schools, believe that we should privatize the Veterans Administration, the Postal Service. That is their philosophy. 40 years ago, that philosophy appeared to be American people to be crazy. Today, it is part of the mainstream of where Republicans are coming from. And those are the struggles that we have every single day. It's manifested in the budget. And here's the bad news, but I'll give you the good news at the end of this. Bad news is President Trump brought forth the budget. And despite what he said in the campaign, which I know will shock you that he was not telling the truth, I know you're all shocked about that, but Trump said during this campaign, he's not gonna cut Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. In his budget, he brought forth a one trillion dollar over 10 year cut to Medicaid. Now you know what that means? That's not just for lowering income people. That's not just the Dr. Dinosaur program here in Vermont for the children. That is nursing home care. Who do you think pays for nursing home care in this country? Significantly, it is Medicaid. You have a trillion dollar cut in Medicaid. Families no longer able. Parents place them in decent nursing homes. What happens to those people who are dealing with Alzheimer's or other serious illnesses? What happens to the families? We have to figure out how they're gonna take care of their parents. Trump proposed a 500 billion dollar cut in Medicare. He proposed cuts in the Social Security Disability Fund. That's the bad news. The good news that we defeated every single one of those proposals. Now in fact, what we did do, and I wanted to mention, not only do you have great organizations here if you have any problems, contact them. But if you're running into problems on veterans issues, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicaid, give my office a ring. We have great case workers who often can help you. Give you an example. But my case workers, those are the people who answer the phone when Vermonters have problems. What they were telling me is that when people with disabilities or seniors in general were calling the Social Security offices, they did not get timely response. And the reason for that is that for the last eight years, the Social Security administration, the people who run the system got no increases at all. And in fact, many positions were lost. So they're under staff. I'm happy to tell you that in the last budget agreement, we managed to increase funding for the Social Security administration for the first time in eight years to the tune of $480 million. Something that I work very hard on. In terms of lighting, which as you know is a very important program for our state and other cold weather states, Trump wanted to eliminate that program completely. So again, this is what goes on in Washington when you have a government that is dominated by big money interest. Tax breaks for billionaires, but we cannot afford a program which keeps millions of seniors and others warm in the wintertime. He wanted to eliminate that program. At the end of the day, we were able to increase funding for LIHEAP by $250 million. In terms of the Meals on Wheels program, Trump and his friends wanted to cut those programs. We were able to stop that. In fact, we were able to increase funding for Meals on Wheels by nearly $60 million. Truth is, for the nation, $60 million is not a whole lot of money, but we were able to prevent bad things from happening and make modest improvements, long overdue improvements. Now, in terms of the most important federal program passed in the modern history of this country, which is Social Security, let me say a word about that. Again, in Washington, here is the lie. The lie is that Social Security is going broke, that we're gonna have to cut benefits, that Medicare is going broke, Medicaid is going broke, we have a deficit, we're gonna have to cut programs. The same exact people who go up on television and tell you this are the same exact people who have given over a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the wealthiest 1%. Now, you tell me how we can have a trillion dollars in tax breaks for the 1% and we don't have enough money to fund the Meals on Wheels program on Medicaid or Medicare. That does not make sense to me. Now, when they tell you that Social Security is going broke, understand that today, Social Security has a 2.8 trillion dollar surplus and can pay out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 16 years. Social Security is not going broke, but from a federal perspective, 16 years is not a terribly long time and you wanna be addressing that problem today. And that is why I have introduced legislation which is very popular, it makes a lot of sense to a lot of people. And that says that in terms of Social Security taxation, if we lift the cap on taxable income for people making $250,000 or more, we can expand, extend Social Security for the next 60 years and increase benefits for lower income seats. A great nation, in my view, and I think history will confirm this, a great nation is not judged by how many tax breaks it gives to billionaires or how many nuclear weapons it has. In fact, a great nation is judged by its compassion, by how it addresses the problems facing the most vulnerable people in its society. And the most vulnerable people are the elderly, people who are no longer able to go out and work, people often are dealing with one or another disability or illness, or how we deal with our children. And in fact, in both respects, taking care of the elderly and taking care of the children, we are not doing a good job. Now, there's another issue that is out there that I hope we will discuss further if any of you have any questions on this, the cost of prescription drugs, all right? Now, I deal with a lot of ugly people in Washington. As you can get. People, you know, it is so funny, the difference between coming home to Vermont and being in Washington. You're in Washington, you got billionaires out there, people are worth tens of billions of dollars, co-brothers are worth $100 billion. You might think that if you were worth $100 billion, you would not be spending half your life trying to get more tax breaks. You might think that $100 billion would be enough to get you by, right? You would think if you had any sense of decency when you're worth $100 billion or $50 billion, whatever these guys are worth, that you would not wanna be cutting programs for people with disabilities or for the elderly, for the children, or for the poor. That is what you might think. But that is not what goes on. And when you look at some of the awful people in Washington, there's no group, maybe with the exception of Wall Street, that ranks higher on the list than the drug companies. So let's be clear about what's going on with the pharmaceutical industry. Last year, the largest five drug companies in this country made $50 billion in profit. $50 billion in profit. They pay out huge compensation packages to the CEOs of these companies. They make tens of millions of dollars a year in compensation. But meanwhile, one out of every five Americans cannot afford to fill the prescriptions given them by their doctors. I remember talking a few years ago to a doctor in Underhill and she was saying that about one quarter of the prescriptions she writes, the working class people are unable to be filled. Now just think about how crazy that is. What is the sense of going to a doctor when a doctor makes a diagnosis right side of a prescription? You can't afford to fill that prescription. Right now the situation is so bad and the pharmaceutical industry is so powerful that over the years, Congress uniquely in the world, in the industrialized world, has not been able to pass one piece of legislation to control the drug companies and the prices that they charge. The truth is that today you can leave here, go to your pharmacist and try to get a prescription filled and the pharmacist will say, well, I'm sorry, the price of that medicine has gone up double or triple. And in fact, what we have seen is that since 2014, the cost of 60 drugs commonly taken by older Americans has more than doubled and 20 of them have at least quadrupled the price. And the reason is drug companies can charge any price they want. There is no control over that. Now these guys are incredibly powerful. Over the past 20 years, listen to this, drug companies have spent more than three and a half billion dollars on lobbying and hundreds of millions in campaign contributions. Got that? Three and a half billion dollars in lobbying. That means that virtually every member of Congress, not me, but almost everybody else, has received money from the pharmaceutical industry. Give me a second. I was out in California last year, and out in California they have something that we don't have. You can put statewide ballot initiatives out there, referendum. And what they said is they wanted the state government not to be paying more for prescription drugs than does the Veterans Administration, which negotiates prices with the drug companies. You know how much money, who wants to guess? How much money the pharmaceutical industry spent in California to defeat that initiative? Answer $130 million in one state on one initiative. In other words, these guys literally have endless amounts of money. Any state, I know in Vermont there is some effort here to do something which I think is important. All right, so what are the issues? Issue number one, drug companies can charge any price that they want. Millions of Americans are getting sick, in some cases dying because they can't afford to buy the medicine, that's issue number one. Issue number two, we pay by far the highest prices in the world for the same exact medicine sold in other countries. Some of you may remember a number of years ago, I became the first member of Congress, when I was in the House, and I'm in the Senate, to take people, people from Franklin County, actually, over the border in Canada, we went up to Montreal to buy breast cancer drugs. And I'll never forget that, and this is what happened. We had a couple of buses going from St. Albans to Montreal, and these were women, working class women, who were struggling with breast cancer. They were fighting for their lives. We went up to Montreal, we had planned this all out, but it was just something to see with your own eyes. Women walking into the drugstore, they bought Tamoxifen. Tamoxifen was then a widely prescribed breast cancer drug, and they paid 10% of the price they were paying in Vermont. One-tenth of the price for the same exact medicine, in the same exact bottle, made by the same exact company. And by the way, Canada has the second highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. In Europe, the prices are much, much less. And out of that trip, other members of Congress and the Senate did it, and the truth is that today, millions of people are now through the internet or going across the border, buying less expensive medicine in Canada. So there are several approaches that we are working on to try to take on the pharmaceutical industry. Number one, I am not a great believer in unfedded free trade, that's another discussion, but that is what exists. So if the food that you eat, if the clothing that you wear comes from all over the world, why cannot pharmacists or prescription drug distributors be able to purchase significantly lower cost prescription drugs from Canada or from Europe if they are FDA approved? All right, that will substantially lower the cost of prescription drugs in this country. Now, we've been trying to do this for a number of years actually, there's some bipartisan support on that effort for some Republicans who support it. Pharmaceutical industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars lying about this effort and trying to stop it. All right, we're gonna continue to do that and I understand here in our legislature there's some discussion doing the same right here in your mind, which is a very good idea, okay? Issue number two, and this is how crazy it is. Medicaid pays a certain price for prescription drugs. The Veterans Administration pays a different price and Medicare pays a different price. Makes no sense whatsoever. So what we want to see is Medicare would spend zillions of dollars on prescription drugs be able to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry the price of those drugs. So when you go in spending billions of dollars you sit down and you say, you know what, Canada, they charge this, in Australia they charge that, France they charge that, you're not gonna double the price. We're gonna negotiate what aid price is. And if we do that we will substantially lower the price of prescription drugs. So there are a number of things that have to be done but the high cost of prescription drugs is one of the great healthcare crises we face in this country today and something we will continue on to work very, very hard on. Okay, we're gonna open it up to questions. I also want people to talk about not just economic issues, but talk about what you are seeing in one of the problems that we face and maybe the panelists can say a word on this as well is when people get isolated they turn to alcohol and surprisingly enough for older people, for many older people, alcohol is a problem and other types of addiction. So let's talk about where we are as a state, where we are as a nation and where we want to be going in the future. So thank you all very much for being here. Let's open it up to questions. How are we doing with the mic? Okay, Catarina has a mic. How many mics do we have? Catarina, just one. All right, so she's gonna be running around the room. Okay, Catarina's thought of it where you want. Thank you. My name is Terry Kanghout from West Topsin. Question about all these big things happening in the world and what their impact is on us here in Vermont. I'm 78, my wife and I run a small business over in Topsin. We make educational electronic kits that we sell to schools and universities like UNI and UConn, places like that. In the summertime, we make a couple thousand kits in our barn and our grandchildren help us out. So all of a sudden we're hearing these scary words about terrorists. Our friend and partner in China ships us most of the electronics parts that go in these kits from China. How do we find out what the impact may be on our little business with the things we're hearing going on in Washington? Well, you're hearing a lot. We haven't seen anything definitive. The devil will be in the details, okay? And we can help you and we can get access to any tariff legislation that is passed. You can give us a ring. Right now you're hearing general statements, but let me say a word on that, okay? I do not believe in unfedded free trade. Why not? Because what has happened over the last 30, 40 years is large multinational corporations have said to American workers in Vermont. Some of you, anybody from Springfield, Vermont to remember Springfield? Used to be a major manufacturing town. What corporations have said to American workers if you do not take a decline in your wages or your healthcare benefits, we're gonna move to China, we're gonna move to Mexico. The result is that the last 20 years we have lost 60,000 factories in America and millions of decent-paid jobs. So I do not believe that American workers should be forced to compete against people in Vietnam, for example, where the minimum wage is about 70 cents an hour. On the other hand, I do believe in trade. I believe in fair trade, in fair trade. And sometimes the trade agreements that we have had have not been fair. So right now there's been a lot of talk from Trump about tariffs to the best of my knowledge. There is very little specificity in terms of implementation. I think that's been zero implementation. Give us a ring and we will get into the details of that deal. Okay. My name's Victoria Rodina, I live here in Montpelier. I have a bunch of eye conditions including glaucoma. I've lost a lot of eyesight, one of my eyes and my eye doctor said basically use the eyedrops or you're gonna go blind in that eye. So I went to refill my prescription. It normally costs maybe $4 or $5 for the co-pay. And they said we can't refill the prescription because the factory in Puerto Rico that produces this medicine was demolished in the flood and so we can't get our hands on the medicine. This is what they said in the medical pharmacy. They said that's fine, I've got relatives ever and they just let me know. And they said no, you can't get it anywhere, certainly anywhere within the region, let alone, maybe not even in the kind of medical United States. They said call your doctor, get him to prescribe something else that will do the same job. So I called and they said well we don't want to prescribe this other medicine because it's kind of pricey quote unquote. And I said well you know I gotta use the eyedrops or whatever we need to do. So I go to pick it up, $116 for the co-pay. And we have decent help for the co-pay. For the co-pay, which is to say that the, I don't know what the, I can't remember now with the actual cost of the medicine was. So I called the insurance company and explained the situation. They said if you had been in the flood in Puerto Rico that would be one matter, then we could put it in the comparative list and we could do this count. However, since it's the factory that was demolished, there's nothing we can do. You're just gonna have to pay $116 for the co-pay. At that point it says I have to do that. I have to be able to see. However, my next phone call is gonna be to Bernie Sanders. And I'm sure we have to know that the call has dropped but Beth encouraged me to raise this money today because it's not just an individual but a systemic issue. Did you get the resolution of your problem? No, no, no. I know I paid $116. Do you think I will leave your name and your phone number with the category number? Okay, let's see what we can do about that. Yeah, I really appreciate it. Okay, okay. Ma'am, thank you. Tell me a little about the beautiful t-shirt, though. Yes. Very fashionable. Very fashionable. My name is Irene Leather, I live in East Montpelio. I'd like to hear your opinion about the prospect of the impeachment of Donald Trump on the process that is going to be a memory trial once this impeachment is done. Impeachment is needless to say. A very, very serious process which takes place for high crimes and misdemeanors. As everybody in this room knows, there is right now an intensive investigation done by Mr. Mold, who is now examining, starting off with the question of whether or not the Trump campaign colluded with Russians. And he is in the midst of a very, very extensive investigation. It would be premature as somebody who, if there was an impeachment process which starts in the house, would be a judge to make a statement on it. But let me say this. There has been discussion in the media about the possibility of Trump firing Rod Rosenstein or Mullick himself. From where I can see right now, that would be a significant obstruction of justice. So in other words, what I am telling you is the process, before you ask me a question, I think all of you know that there is probably nobody in the Congress who feels more strongly about the terrible, terrible things that Trump has done as president. That is a different issue than impeachment. If Trump obstructs justice by ending the investigation of him, which talks about whether or not there were criminal activities, I believe that in itself is likely an impeachable offense, okay? Okay. Senator, my name is John Murphy. I live in Barrie. I'd like to speak in support of a Republican inspired tax break called the low income housing tax credit and to make sure that's protected. The median rent paid by renters in Vermont is $871 and there are two plus a year waiting lists for people trying to get into subsidized housing. And I thank you very much, John, and I agree with you. And I believe we did have some success in the last budget in expanding low income housing tax credit. And the issue that you're touching on, the water issue of affordable housing, depending on where you live in the state of Vermont, I can tell you that in Burlington it is a very significant issue. And that's true all over this country. So I am in short support of low income housing tax credit. Good morning, Bernie. My name is Art Edelstein. Cal is from Rochester, Brooklyn, New York, James Madison High School. So my question is this, all the whatever the Democrats did under the budget agreement that kept programs such as LIHEAP, I assume also, in essence, raised the debt. So my question is this, can we rewrite the tax code when Democrats take over Congress in 2019? In my view, for a start, the Democrats should repeal all of the tax breaks for the wealthy and large corporations that were incorporated into Trump tax proposal. This is not complicated stuff. It comes back to massive levels of income and wealth inequality. Over the last 30, 40 years, the people on the top have done very, very well while the middle class has been shrinking and we've got 40 million people living in poverty. So it seems to me what Congress's job should be is to pay attention to the needs of working families, the elderly, and the children. That's what we're talking about today. I mean, again, this is America. Should we know or anybody else have to worry about funding a Meals on Wheels program? Don't tell me that in America we can't fund that and then say, oh yes, we can give tax breaks to the Koch brothers and other billionaires. So we gotta get our priorities right and our priorities are to simply say, not in the confiscatory way, but in a fair way. If you are making billions of dollars a year, you're gonna have to start paying your fair share of taxes. If you are a large multinational corporation, you can't stash all of your profits in the Cayman Islands and in other tax havens and not end up paying the nickel in federal taxes in a given year, which is what now exists. So a fair tax system says that if you're a profitable corporation, if you're very wealthy, you will pay your fair share. We'll use that money to make sure that everybody in this country has at least a minimum and decent standard of living. Not more complicated than that to my answer. Hi Bernie, I'm Mary Alice Bissie, a seventh generation for Monter, not from Brooklyn. I'm a single payer advocate for medicine for all. What is happening to work towards single payer in Washington? That's my first question. Then I want to know how do you and your panelists, I'd like to hear from them also, feel about S53, a Vermont bill to provide universal primary care paid for publicly financed. And it's a bill that has passed the Senate and is now in the House Healthcare Committee. If you don't know about it, let your representatives know. And it would help for people on Medicare by paying the co-pay for their insurance, but there would be no out of pocket so that people would not wait forever to go to the doctor. Okay, very good. Universal primary care is a first step towards single payer healthcare in Vermont. Well, I think your first question was addressed to the right guy. Because I introduced that legislation. And here is, again, a point that I want to keep reiterating in that when we think about politics, it's thinking about national priorities when you give tax breaks to billionaires and not having enough funding to look at meals with meals for them. But it's also looking around the rest of the world and asking what are other countries doing? So it turns out is, I know Mary Alice knows and maybe all of you know, that we are the only major country on earth, the only one not to guarantee healthcare to all people as a right, as a right. Now, many years ago in the 60s, under President Johnson, Medicare and Medicaid were passed. Right now, Medicare is the most popular health insurance program in the country. It has its problems, which we want to improve upon. And I'll talk about that in a second. But it is very, very popular. My view is we should expand Medicare to everybody, which is what a Medicare for all single payer program is about. Now, when I ran for president, people said, Bernie, that is a crazy idea. Oh, we can't do that, it's too radical, it's too this, it's too that. Well, guess what? In the last couple of months, there have been a number of polls that have come out. One poll has 59% of the American people supporting Medicare for all. Washington Post poll the other day has 51% supporting Medicare for all. Three years ago, when I introduced that legislation in the Senate, it had zero co-sponsors. This time it had 16 co-sponsors. And this time, all over the country, you're seeing candidates for the House and the Senate running and saying, of course, healthcare is the right. Of course, I support Medicare for all. So we are making enormous progress on that issue of joining the rest of the world. Here's the other issue that Mary Alice also knows that we have to ask ourselves. How does it happen that we end up spending almost twice as much per person on healthcare as do the people of any other country? And the answer is that every other country understands that the function of healthcare is to provide it to all people in a cost-effective way to control the prices of drug companies. In our country, healthcare is significantly determined and directed by the insurance companies. And in case you don't know it, let me break the bad news to you. Insurance companies are not worried about quality cost-effective healthcare. They are worried about making as much money as they possibly can. So in my view, and we are making real progress on that. We've got to join every other major country on earth. We've got to control the price of prescription drugs and we need to move toward Medicare for all. Now, let me pick up on another point. Medicare is a very good program, but it has major faults, major lackings, what are they? Does Medicare cover dental care? No, our legislation covers dental care and dentures and so forth. Does Medicare cover the cost of eyeglasses and optical covers? No, our legislation does that as well. So what we want to do is improve Medicare and guarantee it to all people. And at the end of the day, that will be less expensive per person than the current system. Now, what happens there is you will see 30-second ads all over the country, maybe in Vermont, saying, Sanders wants to raise your taxes, terrible guy. What they will forget to tell you if you are a business person or just a plain citizen, you're no longer going to have to pay for, pay your premiums to an insurance companies and you won't have any deductible support co-payments. So this effort of Medicare for all is gaining a lot of support around the country. It will be vigorously opposed by the drug companies and the insurance companies. In my view, the second point to raise moving forward for a universal primary care is an excellent idea, but let these guys say what they'd like on it. Anyone want to comment on that? We'll take a look at this, but we think it's a good bill. We think there's a number of ways to get to what the Senator talked about and I think Mary Alice, which you're talking about as well, we'll see what the Senate does. We've been very focused on the Social Security Bill, and that's been our primary focus this session. But the association's point of view on this broadly is that everybody in the country needs affordable healthcare. It's just a very simple prospect. And a universal primary care bill is one way to take that step forward. The Medicare for all bill is something that delivers that in spades. I think the thing that when ARP, you know, as Beth said earlier, it's easier for me up here than it is for a lot of my colleagues who are working in Alabama and in Texas and other parts of the country because these conversations are not happening about universal primary care, about lowering the cost of prescription drugs. To hear that we now, we have 16 co-sponsors on the Senator's Medicare for all bill up from, I think you just said zero a few years ago. But the polarization is a problem. So until we can bring more folks over to the conversation that we can have in Vermont, right? We need to do that, you know? Yes, no, I'm not arguing that. But I'm saying from a national perspective, it is a very polarized environment. And, you know, we do a lot of good things here. But it's also not really, it's also a bit of fiction to say that whatever we do in Vermont, everybody else is gonna follow because that just hasn't not been the truth, you know. Okay, let me move on to the questions, y'all. Try. Thank you, thank you, Bernie Sanders. My name is Jeff Lindemore, I live in Stowe. I just really found out today this morning that in a couple of weeks, I'll be one of 23 Reminders turning 65. And I thought I had a unique birthday. The first thing I'd like to do is I'd like to ask you to extend our thanks and appreciation to your congressman, the lady in Welsh, because they also work hard and I want to extend a thank you to them for everything that they do as well as what you do. My question is just back to the more political. Just about every day, I read something, Laura Miller says, be patient. And a lot of people say, be patient. Which I'm willing to do. My question is, for our patients, will we be able to undo the damage that is being done every day by Trump? Well, you're asking two separate questions. What Mueller is investing in is not Trump's effort to throw 30 million people off of health insurance. Not his effort to cut back on programs that working people desperately need. Not his expanding military spending by $165 billion over the period and giving tax breaks to the rich. That's my job, that's not Mueller's job, that's all of our jobs, those are political decisions being pushed not only by Trump, but by right-wing extremists who run the House of the Senate. What Mueller is looking at is a very simple issue. It is against the law if somebody runs for president and they get help from a foreign country that happens to be against the law. And what Mueller is starting is investigating, in fact, is whether or not Russia collaborated with the Trump administration in terms of this campaign. That is the narrow issue, but enormously important issue that he is looking at. And that he is moving on quickly. I cannot tell you, nobody can tell you when that investigation will end. But that is a separate issue of the disastrous economic healthcare policies that Trump has proposed, separate issues. Okay, Karina, yeah. Hi, my name is Susan Van Hilt and I'm from Montpelier. Recently in the paper I read an op-ed by you that said that you were supporting legislation to increase Social Security by $1,200 a year. I would love you to talk a little bit more about that and would it only apply to a person receiving Social Security at a certain amount? And what are your ideas about that? Okay, what that legislation is about is I kind of touched on a moment ago. What you see on television every night from people like Paul Ryan is that we have a large deficit and we have got to cut Social Security. So the point that I made a moment ago is that in fact we have a $2.8 trillion surplus but and that Social Security will be basically viable for the next 16 years paying out all benefits. I want to see it viable for a lot longer period of time than that. So the way you do that is very simple. Right now, if you make, I think the number is about $123,000 a year. You end up paying the same amount in Social Security taxes that somebody makes $10 million a year. You with me? If you lift that cap and you say that we can attack somebody who makes $10 million on $10 million and not $123,000, if you do that we will bring in enough revenue to keep Social Security viable for 60 years, 6-0 rather than 16. Also, we will be able to expand benefits for lower income senior citizens. And I can get you more details about it. It would not be for everyone. It would be for lower income people are trying to make it on $12, 13, $14,000 a year. Now the other thing that we are doing is the following. Your college, if you're on Social Security, you know that your colas have not been all that great for the last many years, correct? Okay. Now, why is that? Anybody know why that's so? Susan, do you know why that's so? And in terms of colas? All right, it is, all right. So theoretically, what a colar is is a cost of living adjustment. The theory is that if inflation goes up 3%, you should get a 3% increase in your Social Security check, right? That's the theory. How does the government now determine that rate of inflation for seniors? The truth is it is a very unfair methodology because seniors are lumped into the same group as the general population. So what does that mean? Are most seniors worried about buying a black screen television or the latest computer? The answer is no. Black screen TVs have gone down in cost. A lot of electronic equipment has gone down in cost. So that suggests that inflation is not a serious problem. On the other hand, what are seniors concerned about? What do they spend their money on? They spend it on healthcare. They spend it on prescription drugs. Has the cost of prescription drugs gone up? You bet it has. So what we are trying to do is to come up with an approach which segregates what seniors spend money on. And if the cost of healthcare and prescription drugs is going up, that will be reflected in the new formula. Okay. I've already been late for it from Waterbury Center. And I have a question about the privatization if that's gonna affect Social Security. We've seen how the postal department got privatized but they had a product to sell. They sell stuff that we mail. And they still have to come back every couple of years or so and ask for more money. Even though they have a rating increase of mailing, they still have to come back and ask for more money. So how in the world are they gonna privatize Social Security? They've got nothing to sell except our investments. Right. What that's about, and by the way, the Postal Service issue is more complicated than that. You'd be surprised to know that since 2014, Postal Service actually has made several billion dollars in operating profits. They are stuck with a particular burden that the Bush administration put on them where they have to fund their healthcare pensions for the next 75 years, something that no other private sector company or government agency has to do. Well, you have a group of people led by the Koch Funds as we said earlier. They want to privatize virtually everything, including public education. This is what their theory is. Their theory is the government should not be involved in retirement security, i.e. social security. And that means if you live, let's think for a moment, if you eliminated social security, what your freedom would be to invest in your life in the stock market or on Wall Street or any other way you wanted to do it. Now, sometimes people who do that make money. Sometimes people rip them off because there are a whole lot of fees associated with it. Sometimes you have crashes, as we saw in 2008, which wiped out the life savings of millions and millions of people, all right? So they want to, from an ideological point of view, they want insurance companies and Wall Street to be the providers of retirement benefits to the American people. I think that that is an irresponsible and disastrous idea, and the American people believe that also. So our goal is to extend the lifetime of social security. Our goal is to improve the benefits over the years, starting with lowering of people and moving them up. But the point of social security, and here is the most important point. Think about it. Sometimes we take things for granted. Just think about it. How many times in our lifetime has any American received a letter from the Social Security Administration saying, dear Bill, sorry to inform you that this month, because of economic conditions, your benefits have been cut by 50%. Truth is, no American in the history of social security has ever received that letter. The truth is that every, now we take it for granted, every American since the creation of social security has received every nickel he or she was entitled to receive, now we can argue, benefits are too low, that's fine. But nobody has ever been told, sorry, you expected X, but you're only gonna get Y. That's the strength of social security, okay? Now right now, one of the tragedies that we're dealing with in Washington is people were promised, often in the Midwest, more than the East Coast, promised pensions by their employers. And as a result of a decision by Congress several years ago, people would work their whole lives. People who had given up wage increases, often unionized workers, suddenly found that the pensions that they had been promised were cut by 50%, 25% or whatever. Now think about living your whole life with the expectation that when you retire, you're gonna have X amount of dollars and you're only gonna have two thirds of that. So what social security is about is stability, it is about security, it is saying that you will get what you were promised. And that I will fight to make sure never let it stop. My name is Suzy, I'm from Montpellier, and I wanna thank you for coming. My question is, medical marijuana is legal in Vermont as of July 1st. However, because it is not legal federally, we can't have it in our level three assisted living homes. So our residents cannot benefit from the pain relief they could get. And I would like to know if there's something you can do to help us out with the federal government to see the benefit. The answer is yes, let me tell you what I did. I know that there are people who disagree on this issue, but right now as of this moment, under the Federal Control Substance Act, which regulates this stuff, marijuana is considered the equivalent of heroin. Everybody in this room knows that heroin is a horrible drug which kills people and it takes people. Now you can argue about the pluses and minuses of marijuana, but marijuana does not do that. And there are studies, and a lot of veterans, by the way, who often deal with pain-related problems have looked to marijuana as a source of pain relief. My view was that in his, that this is that we should end the absurdity of marijuana being treated like heroin should be not on level one of the Control Substance Act, that decisions should be made by the states. So in Vermont we have moved forward. And by the way, that's a significant step forward over a short period of time and number of other states have done the same. But to your point, I can't tell you that I know a lot about that particular issue, but I should think that if Vermont has decriminalized marijuana, if it has legalized marijuana, it should be available to all people who would like to use it for pain relief. Hey, Mr. Burney. Yesterday morning I called your office. I couldn't find the number in the Montpelier book. Joanne, Dibble. I was concerned about your vote about Mr. Papagalio, perhaps that's not the question. Pompeo. Yes, and I really hope that, and almost know that you would vote against him, for approval of the State Department as we go on. Right about three speeches on that subject. Yes. You know, for a variety of reasons. Yes. Pompeo in his life, you know, there's what we call an international gag or an American foreign aid is tied to programs that do not provide birth control, reproductive information to women. And I think that that is wrong and he supports the continuation of that. His views on gay rights are terrible. But most importantly, as Secretary of State, I want somebody to advise the president and help implement in a very complicated and difficult world to try to bring countries together to work out through diplomacy of peaceful resolutions to the terrible conflicts that exist and not military solutions. And I have no reason to believe that Pompeo agrees with that. So I will vote against Pompeo. But we can only take a few more questions. We have to get up to Newport. Yeah. Yes, my name is Alice Peele. I'm going to Wakefield for a month. You had asked about hearing about some people's experiences and what you see others having experiences with. In terms of insurance companies, Medicare, Medicare Part D drug programs, I have rheumatoid arthritis. Twice a year I wind up in UVM Medical having IV medication for that. And I go in there and I sit with other people having infusions of drugs for rheumatoid arthritis and other things. Invariably, we all wind up talking about our headaches with private insurance, with Medicare, with the Part D drug coverage and approvals. And it's become very apparent to me, one, the stress that I've gone through throughout this journey with RA and dealing with insurance companies, coverage, deductibles, approvals. I see that depression and that stress every time I'm in there. I also see that because the drug companies do this and the problems with Medicare, more and more people, their treatment is being dictated by what would be covered or what is not covered. And if you kick it to Part D drug company, drug insurance, they'll pay half of your envelope. So your choice becomes do you pay $2,000 a month out of pocket or do you pick up to the next one which is $25,000 a treatment four times a year? And that's what's happening. And that's what's costing us money and that stress of even doing it. My second question is about social security. You look on Facebook and you see all these wonderful means about how that's our money. And it is our money. And I think AARP should be representing the elderly and social security and disability benefits in helping us protect that. And I specifically even consider who do I go to to say let's get a lawsuit against using our money or telling us we don't have our money anymore or misuse of our funds or these wacky Medicare negotiations. Okay, you raised a lot of issues. But let me just deal with the first one first. Again, what I ask people, you know, sometimes the problems that we have is we get used to the world in which we live. We step over people who are homeless. We see children sleeping out in cars. We understand that there are people who do not have enough food to eat. And we say, well, that's normal. It is not normal. Those are decisions made by a government which is dominated by greed. Dominated by people who could care less about ordinary merchants who don't know, who don't care to know. The kind of pain that exists in this country who are simply hiring lobbyists all over Washington. Give me a tax break. I only made 14 billion last year. And if you do this, I can get an even bigger tax break. But don't tell me, you know, I'm from the drug companies. I don't want to deregulate. Deregulate, let me do anything I want. That's freedom. You want to take away my freedom to double the price of your medicine? Oh, that's a terrible thing to do. So what we have got to do is to rethink things. Your point is a very good point. I have heard of million times. Yeah, there was, I don't know if any of you saw this. A study came out of these studies. You could, you know, take them or whatever they were. They look at countries around the world who are happiest. You know, that what is happiness? That's a tough thing to determine. And what they usually find is that countries like Finland was this year or Denmark are the happiest. You know why? Because people in those countries do not have to deal with the incredible stress, stress that we have to deal with. In Finland, you know what, you get sick. You got all of the health care that you need. You don't have to worry about the cost of prescription drugs. You think that would not take away an enormous amount of stress from people? In Finland, kids go to college and graduate school tuition-free. Hey, parents, do you think that would take a lot of stress away from all of us? What about the... So, you know, nobody has a magical solution to human happiness. But what we do know is if human beings can get the health care they need without worrying, my God, especially when you're sick. You know, I was up in Canada a few months ago looking at their system again and I talked to doctors and patients. And what the patients said, you know, I had cancer, whatever the illness was, and I'm in the hospital. I got enough to worry about dealing with cancer, I don't have to worry about how I'm gonna pay my bills or whether it's gonna bankrupt my family or how I'm gonna afford the medicine that I need. So when you get sick, you got enough to worry about trying to get well, not having to worry about the financial implications of your illness. In a democratic, civilized society, that is not an enormous ask. You know, we can do that. Other countries have already done that. And in terms of social security, look, this is a political struggle. It's a struggle between those people who simply want to make as much money as they can of every aspect of human life. They wanna make money off of the water. There are people around the country, corporations wanna privatize the water that you drink. You know, pretty soon they'll probably be asking you to pay for the air you're breathing. You know, they don't stop. They do not stop making as much money as they possibly can on everything, including retirement, is their goal. But what I want all of you to know is that on those issues, and virtually every issue that I talked about today, the vast majority of the American people are opposed to those efforts at privatization, opposed to the efforts of the drug companies to be able to make more and more money. And they are moving in a direction which says that we need to have a government that understands the pain that people are feeling and develops solutions to those problems. Bottom line, again, on the end, by the way I start, we are living in the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Problem is almost all of that wealth and almost all of the income generated every year goes through the people on top whose greed has no end. Yes, we can control the cost of prescription drugs and in fact we can do what other countries do and make prescription drugs available for free or very little cost for those people who don't have the money. This is not a radical idea. Yes, we can extend and expand social security benefits. Yes, we can guarantee healthcare to all and expand Medicare to cover dental issues and optical issues. Will those cost money? Yes, they will. But you do that by telling the billionaires in large corporations they are no longer gonna get the tax breaks that they need that we're not gonna spend an endless amount of money on the military. Thank you. This is greatly an appreciate you all coming. Thank you all very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.