Bernie Sanders calls for eliminating all medical debt at South Carolina event

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Bernie Sanders teases plan to eliminate all medical debt.

Bernie Sanders speaks to reporters after a town hall.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., told an audience in South Carolina Friday that he is working on legislation that would "eliminate medical debt in this country."

Sanders made the remark during a question-and-answer period following a town hall meeting in Florence on "Medicare-for-All." A female attendee explained to Sanders that she doesn't make enough money to qualify for ObamaCare and has a large amount of medical debt not covered by insurance.

When the woman asked Sanders if he had a plan for that, the self-described democratic socialist told her: "In another piece of legislation that we're offering, we're gonna eliminate medical debt in this country."

The Sanders campaign confirmed to Fox News that the proposal was new, but details were scant.

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"We are introducing legislation that would end all medical debt in this country," Sanders told reporters as he departed the town hall. "The bottom line is it is an insane and cruel system, which says to people that they have to go deeply into debt or go bankrupt because of what? Because they came down with cancer or they came down with heart disease or they came down with Alzheimer’s, or whatever ...

"In the midst of a dysfunctional healthcare system, we have to say to people that you cannot go bankrupt or end up in financial duress," Sanders added. "That is cruel and something we've gotta handle. This is something that we're working on and that we will introduce."

Sanders has long touted his "Medicare-for-All" proposal, which would replace job-based and individual private health insurance with a government-run plan that guarantees coverage for all with no premiums, deductibles and only minimal copays for certain services. Health care has become a key issue in South Carolina, which is among the Republican-led states that turned down Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act.

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Sanders' legislation does not specify new revenues, instead providing a separate list of "options" that include higher taxes on the wealthy, corporations and employers while promising the middle class will be better off.

"You're going to be paying more in taxes," Sanders said Friday to a man asking how he'd benefit from Medicare for All if his employer currently pays for most of his premiums. "But at the end of the day, you're going to be paying less for health care than you are right now. It will be comprehensive."

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The healthcare industry has become a favorite whipping boy for Sanders, who told his audience Friday: "Thirty years from now your kids and your grandchildren will be asking you was it really true? That there were people in America who could not go to the doctor when they wanted to? Was it really true that people went bankrupt because they could not pay their healthcare bills? And you will have to tell them, 'Yes, it was.' But together we are going to end that obscenity and we're going to end it in the next few years."

The new proposal is not the only debt that Sanders has called for canceling. He has repeatedly called for the elimination of $1.6 trillion in student loan debt as well and calling for public college and universities to be tuition-free.

According to the RealClearPolitics polling average, Sanders is the second choice among Democrats nationwide, garnering 17.1 percent of the vote. Former Vice President Joe Biden holds a comfortable lead with 28.9 percent support, while Elizabeth Warren is narrowly behind Sanders in third place at 16.5 percent support.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.