Staffers for Bernie Sanders’ now-suspended presidential run are thanking the Vermont senator for extending their health insurance coverage through late November despite not being employed with the campaign anymore.
The former candidate, whose platform was dominated by his push for “Medicare-for-all,” dropped out of the race Wednesday morning and set up former Vice President Joe Biden to be the Democratic nominee. Despite his exit from the race, Sanders was apparently “adamant” that his campaign staff be able to retain their health care coverage through Nov. 20, 2020.
“Thankful to Bernie who we just found out was adamant his entire campaign staff stays on our health insurance through November,” Sara Pearl, Sanders’ former supervising producer, tweeted on Thursday.
Sanders’ commitment to providing health insurance to his former staff is a marked difference to former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s move to fire his staff as soon as he dropped out of the presidential earlier this year.
Sanders, at one point the front-runner for the nomination, initially announced the decision to exit the race during an all-staff conference call Wednesday morning, and followed up with an address livestreamed to supporters shortly before noon.
Citing Biden’s lead of more than 300 convention delegates, Sanders declared: “The path toward victory is virtually impossible.”
He continued: “I have concluded that this battle for the Democratic nomination will not be successful. … I do not make this decision lightly.”
BIDEN WANTS SANDERS TO BE PART OF ‘JOURNEY’
He still claimed a symbolic victory in saying, “Our movement has won the ideological struggle” — discussing how core ideas like a $15 minimum wage, health care for all and more have been more widely embraced in the party.
In a curious moment, though, Sanders said that Biden “will be the nominee,” yet went on to stress the importance of continuing to win delegates for his own campaign so he’ll be able to exert “influence” on the party platform.
Calling it a “difficult and painful decision,” Sanders stressed that “while this campaign is coming to an end, our movement is not.”
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
