Veteran Navy Corpsman lost Tricare and told Bernie Sanders he would kill himself

UPDATE Veteran who contemplated suicide reunites with Bernie Sanders The Naval Air Force veteran said he was buried in medical debt.

Ailing Navy veteran tells Bernie Sanders at Nevada town hall: "I'm gonna kill myself"

CBS NEWS
SEPTEMBER 15, 2019

In a dramatic moment caught on video, an ailing Navy veteran struggling to pay off his medical bills said he was contemplating suicide while speaking at a Bernie Sanders town hall in Carson City, Nevada. The veteran, named John, said Friday his Tricare was taken away, leaving him with more than $130,000 worth of medical bills.

"How are you going to pay it off?" Sanders asked the veteran.

"I can't, I can't. I'm gonna kill myself!" John responded.

In a video clip captured by CBS News' Cara Korte that has now gone viral, John told Sanders that he served 20 years in the Navy, including tours in Kuwait and Somalia.

"I saved lives. I was a Navy corpsman," he said. "We take care of our own except now. My Tricare is not acceptable anymore, they took it away."

The veteran said he suffers from Huntington's disease, a genetic disorder that causes the breakdown of nerve cells in the brain. According to the National Institutes of Health, there is no treatment for the disease.
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