Bernie Sanders backs bill to cancel all medical debt – National & International News – WED 8May2024

Sanders, other progressives back bill to cancel all medical debt.

Biden to tighten border access after House Dems demand action.

US withholds weapons from Israel over Rafah invasion.

NATIONAL NEWS

Sanders, other progressives back bill to cancel all medical debt

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) have unveiled a bill to tackle a growing crisis of medical debt. The bill is likely to face opposition both from Republicans and Democrats in both houses. However, a 2022 poll shows that about 66% of Americans (85% of Democrats an 56% of Republicans) support medical debt relief. The overwhelming popular support is unsurprising since nearly one-third of Americans have unpaid medical debt. As of 2019, nearly 530,000 people a year were falling into bankruptcy with medical debt and time away from work due to medical issues being contributing factors. Medical debt can also negatively impact your credit score and make it more difficult to secure loans and housing.

The Medical Debt Cancellation Act would:

• Amend the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (1977) to block creditors from collecting past medical bills.
• Amend the Fair Consumer Credit Reporting Act (1970) to bar credit reporting agencies from reporting information related to medical debt.
• Amend the Public Health Service Act (1944) to update billing and debt collection requirements to limiting the potential for consumers to incur future medical debt.
• Set up a grant program within the Department of Health and Human Services to cancel medical debt, prioritizing providers caring for underserved groups.

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Biden to tighten border access after House Dems demand action

Earlier this week, 15 Democratic members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to President Biden calling for executive action on the border. The signers represent competitive districts in swing states and are facing tight re-election races. Today, Biden administration sources signaled that Biden will be taking action this week to tighten asylum restrictions at the border. The new regulation will allow officials to more quickly deport asylum seekers who pose national security threats or have criminal histories.

Biden is also reportedly considering a much more sweeping action that would sharply restrict who can apply for asylum. He is considering invoking his powers under Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which gives the President the authority to bar entry to any foreign individual or group whose arrival the President deems to be detrimental to national interests. Former President Trump invoked his authority to bar arrivals from Muslim countries.

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Related: US, Mexico agree to clamp down on illegal migration.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

US withholds bombs from Israel, Israel invades Rafah anyway

Israeli tanks have invaded Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city. For the last several months, over 1 million Gazan refugees forced out of northern Gaza have been sheltering in makeshift camps around Rafah. The Biden administration and several other major Israeli allies have strongly urged Israel not to invade Rafah fearing a massive human toll. Officials in both the UK and France, both of which have strongly supported Israel up to now, have said that an invasion of Rafah would be a war crime.

Israel’s 7-month long military assault has already flattened virtually every other part of the Gaza Strip and has killed least 40,000 people (overwhelmingly civilians, 15,000 of them children). International observers fear that the death toll from a military incursion into Rafah could eclipse even that number. 

The Biden administration has warned it will not support an invasion of Rafah without seeing a credible plan to protect civilians. To date, officials say, Israel has presented no such plan. In a warning to Israel over this wantonly destructive act, the US last week paused delivery of a shipment of bombs to Israel. The shipment consisted of 1,800 2,000lb bombs and 1,700 500lb bombs. Israel has used these mammoth munitions to wreak utter destruction everywhere else in the Strip.

In an interview with CNN, Biden said that he will stop supplying artillery shells and other weapons to Israel as well if they invade Rafah. He claims that the operation so far is at the “edges” of Rafah and has not yet targeted population centers, which he has previously described as a “red line”.

Regardless, it seems Israel has no intent of halting its plans to do to Rafah what it has done to the rest of Gaza. In a video uploaded by Israeli soldiers, a group of soldiers can be seen assembling ahead of the Rafah invasion. One of them blows a shofar, a ritual ram’s horn before the soldiers chant “Let us destroy Rafah“.

US can’t decide whether Israel is committing war crimes

Today, the State Department was to produce a report to Congress assessing the credibility of Israel’s claims to be using US weapons in a manner consistent with international law. Several US laws, including the Leahy Law, prohibit the transfer of US weapons to nations that may use them to commit war crimes. An official finding that Israel is using weapons in ways that violate international humanitarian law could increase political pressure on the administration to halt weapons sales to Israel altogether. 

In April, Reuters reported that senior State Department officials have told Sec. of State Antony Blinken that they do not find Israel’s assurances on this front to be credible. Last week, 86 House Democrats sent an open letter to Biden saying that Israel’s restrictions on aid entering Gaza were potentially in violation of the Foreign Assistance Act. A determination that Israel was hindering delivery of humanitarian aid would violate Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act. Like the Leahy Law, this would also require the US to block further security assistance or arms sales to Israel.

Unfortunately, administration officials informed Congress yesterday that they would miss the May 8 deadline to produce their report. But according to State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, they’re still “working very hard” on it.

Amnesty International called the delay “inexcusable” given that they’ve had since February to assemble the report, which they should have already been working on since October.