Health care and jobs will be the focus of Conyers, Sanders town hall in Detroit

Aug. 22--When Republicans failed last month to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, some Democrats got a glimmer of hope that their health care proposals could gain some traction.

U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit, and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, will harness the possibility of an alternative health care solution and focus on their "Medicare for All" proposal during a town hall meeting at Fellowship Chapel Church in Detroit at 7 p.m. tonight.

In an opinion piece in Fortune magazine last week, Sanders wrote, "In our country, Medicare, a government-run single-payer health care system for seniors, is a popular, cost-effective health insurance program. When the Senate gets back into session in September, I will be introducing legislation to expand Medicare to cover all Americans."

It's a bill that Conyers has introduced every year since 2003.

"The data is clear that simply expanding Medicare to all Americans to create a single-payer system would be far more efficient," he said when he reintroduced the bill in January.

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The program would be funded by a payroll tax on employers and employees, a financial transaction tax, and higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans. But getting the issue through a Republican-controlled U.S. House and Senate is a long shot, at best.

The political colleagues also will touch on a companion youth jobs bills they've introduced in the House and Senate to tackle high unemployment rates, especially among urban youth.

It will be Sanders' first visit to Michigan since January, when he participated in a frigid demonstration outside Macomb Community College in Warren to protest the Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

He is expected to get an enthusiastic reception. During the presidential primary last year, Sanders drew thousands of enthusiastic supporters to rallies in Ypsilanti, East Lansing, Warren, Flint and at Grand Valley State University. A Democratic debate between Clinton and Sanders was held in Flint. He defied virtually all the polls, which had Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton easily winning the state, to score a slim, 50-48% win over Clinton.

Contact Kathleen Gray: 313-223-4430, [email protected] or on Twitter @michpoligal.

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