Bernie Sanders claim that he helped write Obamacare

[ViseGrip]

17. Here is the record from another senator on the committee....Politifact should be mostly true.

Yes, Bernie was very involved with the drafting of the ACA
Without Bernie there wouldn't have been 11 billion in the ACA CHCs. He made his vote for it contingent on that. And yes, he fought for single payer and the public option. The following is from the pro Hillary TPM.

ut interviews with various congressional staff involved with the reform effort as well as outside experts reveal that Sanders' role in the creation of 2010's Affordable Care Act is a complicated one.

On one hand, he sat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (or HELP) Committee -- one of the two committees charged with pulling together the legislation. And he championed not-insignificant provisions like expanded funding for community health centers and providing an option for states to experiment with their own systems.

On the other hand, his relentless push for the single-payer model made passing the bill more complicated, some staffers working on the legislation at the time told TPM, and to say he was behind the core elements -- the exchanges, mandates, and the Medicaid expansion --- would be an exaggeration.

At the end of the day, vetting his claim depends on your definition of “write.”

“Was he involved in the creation? He was deeply involved in a variety of ways. He got some important things in there,” said John McDonough, a Harvard public health professor who wrote the 2011 book "Inside National Health Reform."

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Former Sen. Jeff Bingaman (NM) was the one Democrat who sat on both committees working on the ACA at the time. He was also a member of Baucus' Gang of Six.

“As a regular member of the committee on the Democratic side -- we were the ones who were writing the bill because Republicans were opposing everything,” Bingaman told TPM last week. “So was very much involved like the rest of us.”

Bingaman remembered specifically Sanders’ community health center provision, but said that “he was a strong advocate for other parts of it, too."

Legislative staffers on the HELP Committee from that time contend that Sanders’ various contributions were meaningful ones.

“I think it is an absolutely fair claim for him to make,” said one former Democratic aide. “I would say, unequivocally, he was very involved in putting his mark on the bill.”

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/sanders-role-in-the-affordable-care-act