Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Bernie Sanders' Health Incident Confirmed As Heart Attack, Drawing Spotlight To Candidate At Pivotal Moment In Race
Bloomberg: Heart Attack Forces Sanders To Reset Campaign At Pivotal Moment
Few audiences are more welcoming to Bernie Sanders than a pro-labor gathering. So his absence from a union forum in Los Angeles after a heart attack cast a shadow over his 2020 presidential bid. As his rivals made a pitch for the influential Service Employees International Union’s support, Sanders was being discharged from a hospital in Las Vegas on Friday after experiencing chest pains on Tuesday night. Doctors inserted two stents into a blocked artery. (Kapur, 10/6)
The Hill: Sanders At Home In Vermont After Release From Hospital
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has returned to Burlington, Vt., after suffering a heart attack in Las Vegas. Sanders tweeted of his homecoming Sunday, saying he is "recovering well and feeling much better." "I am more determined than ever to fight alongside you to make health care a human right," he said. (Coleman, 10/6)
ABC News: Bernie Sanders' Health Incident Diagnosed As Heart Attack
"I want to thank the doctors, nurses, and staff at the Desert Springs Hospital Medical Center for the excellent care that they provided," Sanders said in the statement. "After two and a half days in the hospital, I feel great, and after taking a short time off, I look forward to getting back to work." (Kelsey, Harper and Doom, 10/4)
NBC News: Bernie Sanders Returns Home To Vermont As He Recovers From Heart Attack
Sanders' medical team said in the statement that he was taken to the cardiac catheterization laboratory and "two stents were placed in a blocked coronary artery." The other arteries were normal, the statement said. (Burke and Brewster, 10/5)
The New York Times: Bernie Sanders Had Heart Attack, His Doctors Say As He Leaves Hospital
Mr. Sanders, 78, had entered the hospital on Tuesday night after experiencing chest pain at a campaign event, and doctors had inserted two stents in a blocked artery, a relatively common procedure. But the campaign did not confirm that Mr. Sanders had had a heart attack until Friday, inviting questions about his condition, and his campaign’s transparency, as he remained off the campaign trail this week. (Ember, 10/4)
The Washington Post: Will Medicare-For-All Hurt The Middle Class? Elizabeth Warren And Bernie Sanders Struggle With Questions About Its Impact.
The two presidential candidates who have most strenuously backed Medicare-for-all are scrambling to ease concerns that it would create higher costs for many middle-class Americans. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are running on a multitrillion-dollar plan Sanders wrote to provide health insurance coverage to all Americans through the federal government, rather than from private insurers. Although they have frequently stressed that the middle class would see overall costs go down, a wide range of experts — including one whom Sanders has relied upon — say it is impossible to make those guarantees based on the plans that the candidates have outlined so far. (Viser and Sullivan, 10/5)
Bloomberg: Warren Has A Plan For Everything. But On Health Care She’s ‘With Bernie’
Elizabeth Warren has a plan for everything — but on the crucial 2020 issue of health care, she’s borrowing from a rival and fellow progressive -- Bernie Sanders. The presidential candidate who made a mark with her signature “I have a plan for that!” is the only one of the five top-polling Democrats without a sweeping proposal of her own to remake the health care system. She has instead championed Sanders’ legislation to replace private insurance by putting every American in an expanded Medicare program. (Kapur, 10/7)
