Sanders set to mount vigorous defense of ‘Medicare for All’

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders plans to offer a robust defense of “Medicare for All” after a week in which former Vice President Joe Biden has battered his proposal as too risky.

Sanders will deliver a speech in Washington on Wednesday confronting critics of his Medicare for All plan as the fight over how to best provide health care for Americans has become an animating focus of the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

Sanders’ campaign says he also will pledge to reject campaign donations from health insurance and pharmaceutical industry executives, lobbyists and political action committees and call on other Democratic presidential candidates to do the same.

The speech comes as Sanders is slipping in some public polling and is trying to gain traction in a crowded Democratic field.