Bernie Sanders: How the next US President contrasts with Donald Trump

Bernie Sanders has taken the early lead in the Democratic Party primaries and is now the favourite to be the party's nominee to take on Donald Trump in the US presidential election in November.

The 78-year-old has been politically active his entire life but was relatively obscure outside of the United States until he put up a surprisingly strong fight against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primaries.

Sanders' views are considerably to the left of the Democratic Party mainstream, who fear the independent Senator for Vermont will scare off moderate voters and deliver Trump and the far-right another four years in power.

But what does Sanders really believe? And what's his vision for the US? 

Health

The US has a notoriously convoluted and expensive healthcare system, with frequent reports of people being billed into bankruptcy if their insurance - provided they can afford it - doesn't cough up the exorbitant fees demanded by healthcare providers.

Sanders' flagship policy is 'Medicare for all'. Medicare is a government insurance scheme for older Americans and a few younger people with disabilities or selected diseases. It only covers part of the cost of healthcare though, with recipients expected to top it up with private insurance cover. 

Sanders' plan would not only expand this to cover all Americans but eliminate deductibles and fees, as well as set up a single-payer system to fund it - much like New Zealand does, the single-payer being the Government.

He'd put a US$200 cap on the amount prescriptions can cost each person per year. In New Zealand, the first 20 prescriptions usually cost $5, and after that they're free. 

Sanders' vision for healthcare in the US would arguably go even further than what we have in New Zealand however, with dental care, vision and mental health services also fully funded.

According to his website, his plan wouldn't cost anything - rather, it would save Americans $5 trillion over a decade.

Sanders would also wipe medical debt owed to credit agencies - currently estimated at US$81 billion - claiming two-thirds of bankruptcies in the US are linked with medical issues. 

In contrast, Trump has sought to roll back former President Barack Obama's healthcare efforts - which halved the number of uninsured Americans - citing soaring costs. His vision is to encourage more private insurers into the market, assuming competition will bring costs down. 

The Green New Deal

While Trump is in the process of pulling the US out of international climate agreements and pushing for the expansion of fossil fuel mining, Sanders wants to transition the US to 100 percent renewable energy and - like New Zealand - reach a net-zero emissions by 2050. 

He says this will not only "avert climate catastrophe" but eliminate unemployment with the creation of 20 million new jobs and end up with electricity being "virtually free" by 2035.

Vote For Anyone But Trump

Sanders would also bring the US back into the Paris climate agreement, and not only end investments in fossil fuels but prosecute the companies that benefited from them "just as the federal government did with the tobacco industry in the 1980s". 

Trump has called Sanders' plan "unthinkable", saying it will "kill millions of jobs" rather than create them and "crush the dreams of the poorest Americans and disproportionately harm minority communities". 

Sanders, on the other hand, says the impacts of climate change will hit minorities and the poor the hardest, and the transition to cleaner energy will create jobs.

Education

Another big-spending plan Sanders has lined up is cancelling US$1.6 trillion in debt held by 45 million Americans. 

He also wants to make public colleges, universities and trade schools free to attend, as they used to be when he was a young man. 

Unlike the plans mentioned above, Sanders admits cancelling student debt and making education won't pay for itself - so he's planning to "impose a tax of a fraction of a percent on Wall Street speculators who nearly destroyed the economy a decade ago". 

His closest rival for the Democratic Party nomination, Joe Biden, has no plans to cancel student debt - just making it a bit easier to pay off, and eventually wiping it if it's still not paid off after 20 years. 

Elizabeth Warren's plan is similar to Sanders', but won't cover the highest of earners - instead, hitting them with a tax to help those struggling to pay off their loans.

Sanders also wants to make early childhood education free for everyone, citing how childcare costs currently disproportionately affect the poor. 

Trump's White House has repeatedly cut the US education budget - by 8 percent this year, and 10 percent the year before - and is now trying to cut back what debt forgiveness plans are already in place for non-profit and government employees.

Other key policies 

Sanders also wants to:

• increase the minimum teachers' salary to NZ$78,400
• build 10 million "permanently affordable" homes 
• implement rent control
• ban for-profit prisons
• abolish the death penalty, three-strike laws, and mandatory minimum sentences
• treat drug use as a health issue, not a criminal one
• reunite families separated by the Trump administration's crackdown on asylum seekers and migrants
• introduce a wealth tax on the top 0.1 percent - anyone worth US32 million or more
• end the gerrymandering of electoral boundaries and make election day a national holiday
• implement higher taxes on companies that have huge pay gaps between employees
• keep abortion legal
• ban assault weapons and implement a buyback plan
• legalise cannabis, invest the profits in communities hit hard by the 'war on drugs' and expunge past convictions
• guarantee jobs for all with living wages.

Sanders' history

While never joining the Democratic Party itself, Sanders - a self-described democratic socialist - has voted with them more than 90 percent of the time. 

A number of times he has made it into the Senate (and Congress before that) by running in the Democratic primary, securing the nomination, then running against his Republican challengers as an independent. 

Though he's been in national politics for almost 30 years, critics say he's left little legislative imprint, his ideas too radical and left-wing to get passed. Becoming President would remove a significant hurdle for the longtime activist, who was present in Washington when Martin Luther King delivered his 'I have a dream' speech in 1963.  

Newshub