Bernie Sanders Is Right: 50 Million Lose Their Insurance Each Year

Mainstream fact-checkers keep accusing Bernie Sanders of false claims that are certifiably true. A recent example: his statement during the Democratic debate that 50 million people lose their health insurance every year.

Bernie Sanders waves while arriving on stage during the Democratic presidential candidate debate on September 12, 2019 in Houston, Texas. (Callaghan O’Hare / Getty Images)


I did not get to watch much of the Democratic debate last week, but I learned that at one point in the debate Bernie Sanders said that:

George, you talked about, was it 150 million people on private insurance? Fifty million of those people lose their private insurance every year when they quit their jobs or they go unemployed or their employer changes their insurance policy.

Emmarie Huetteman of Kaiser Health News declared this claim “mostly false” for a piece she wrote at Politifact. Huetteman’s analysis of this claim is both strange and incorrect.

This article is for subscribers only. Please login or subscribe to access our full archives and beautiful print and digital magazine starting at just $3 a month.