Bennet pushes against single-payer 'litmus test,' takes shots at GOP in friendly town hall

GREELEY— During what was overall a jovial town hall meeting Monday night, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet said he hoped support for a single-payer type health care system wouldn’t become a “litmus test” for future Democratic candidates.

Bennet, Colorado’s Democrat in the Senate, also didn’t shut down the idea of working to expand coverage, either via Medicare or Medicaid. He said health care is something being debated frequently by Democrats, and he imagines it will be a key part of future elections, particularly the 2020 presidential election.

“I’m in the early days of this myself,” Bennet told a crowd of about 150 people at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley.

It was the first of two in-person, general-purpose town halls Bennet is hosting over two days. The second is Tuesday in Sterling.

Despite the setting — Greeley is the county seat of Weld County, which went for President Donald Trump by more than 20 percentage points and Bennet’s Republican challenger, Darryl Glenn, by almost as much — the audience was largely friendly.

Absent were the boos and heckles that have been signatures in recent Republican town halls, including that of U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman of Aurora — a much more evenly divided district. Instead, the audience frequently laughed along with Bennet.

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At one point, Bennet almost seemed like he wasn’t sure if it was OK to chuckle when responding to a question about oversight of military spending and overseas goals. He got out a quick, “No, there isn’t,” before noting a seemingly rudderless foreign policy that’s prominently featured Trump bashing old alliances such as NATO or partnerships like the European Union and an understaffed U.S. State Department.

The laughter, with Republican leaders and actions often the target, led one audience member to accuse Bennet of digressing in every answer just so he could “slam dunk” on the GOP.

Even the single-payer question, which started with Bennet highlighting problems that similar efforts have had in Vermont and California, ended with the senator throwing a jab at President George W. Bush. He said the former Republican president’s Medicare supplement plan for pharmaceuticals set the program on the path to insolvency by not including enough money for it.

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Bennet responded to the “slam dunk” observation by highlighting his track record of bipartisanship in the Senate, including work on the so-called Gang of Eight immigration bill, which includes a path to citizenship and stronger immigration laws. He also highlighted the anti-immigration rhetoric used by Trump, and actions such as the new immigration bill being pushed by the White House, as an oddity in the administration.

“To describe it as terror is not an overstatement,” Bennet said when describing deportation efforts under the administration.

He ended the event with a plea for people to vote and to hold true to Benjamin Franklin’s statement about the U.S. government: That it’s “a republic, if you can keep it.”

“(Staying informed and active is) the only way we’re going to be able to look our kids in the face and say, hey, we were able to keep it,” Bennet said in his closing remarks. “Now it’s up to you.”