Bernie Sanders Talks Heart Attack In Powerful Message To Supporters: ‘I Have One Life To Live, What Role Do I Want To Play?’

Independent Vermont Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders discussed his recent heart attack in a moving video message to supporters, telling them “I have one life to live, what role do I want to play?”

The Sanders campaign released a video on Thursday — entitled “We Will Make History” — that features Sanders speaking directly to camera about his hospitalization following a heart attack last week, and explaining how the experience reinforced his political mission.

A subdued and reflective Sanders began by thanking people for their well wishes, then said “I also want to say that I am feeling great. I am getting my endurance back and I look forward to getting out on the campaign trail as soon as possible.”

Sanders then delivered a moving account of his reflections as he lay in the hospital.

But let me relay to you just kind of an experience that I had lying in a hospital bed in Las Vegas after the heart attack. And I thought about a lot of things, needless to say, but one of the things that just went through my brain is “What would have happened if I did not have the good health insurance that I have?”

I have both Blue Cross and Blue shield through my job in the Senate, and then I have Medicare as well. So what happens if somebody had no health insurance, who felt a pain in his or her chest or felt really sick and said to themselves, “D I really want to go to the doctor or the hospital, because I don’t have time to thousands of dollars to pay for the medical bills that I’m going to incur?”

How many people are in that position? How many people have died because they don’t get to the doctor, the hospital, when they should? And it made me feel even more strongly the need for us to continue our efforts to end this dysfunctional and cruel healthcare system, which leaves so many people uninsured, under insured, causes bankruptcy, lowers credit scores, for people who owe medical debt. It is an insane, wasteful, bureaucratic system based on the greed of the health care industry.

So I got to tell you, that even as I sat and lied down in that hospital bed in Las Vegas, this issue of the struggle we are engaged in just, you know, perminated my mind. And I want all of you to understand that the day is going to come when 20 years from now 30 years from now, you’re going to be talking to your kids and you’re going to be talking to your grandchildren and looking back and saying “You know what? I was involved in that struggle that finally brought healthcare to all Americans as a human right.

Sanders went on to say that while he “had a rough week,” he noted that “a lot of people are dealing with a lot more pain than I am.”

He described, at length, the struggles Americans go through, and the policies his campaign is proposing to remedy them.

“But at the end of the day, if you’re going to look at yourself in the mirror and you’re going to say, ‘Look, I go around once. I have one life to live, what role do I want to play?’” Sanders said, adding that it means “more than defeating Donald Trump, of course we have to do that.”

“It speaks to the need to create the kind of country that we can become, where people are working hard to serve each other – to understand each other,” Sanders said.

On Wednesday, Sanders said he would be scaling back his campaign schedule, which was breakneck by any standard, then later said he “misspoke.”

“We’re going to get back into the groove of a very vigorous campaign, I love doing rallies and I love doing town meetings,” he said.

Watch the video above, via Bernie 2020.