Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders made two self-defeating, hyperbolic statements this week in response to the Republican health care bill. First, he claimed, “If this legislation is passed, and millions of people are thrown off of health insurance, not able to get to a doctor when they must, thousands of Americans will die.” He repeated this contortion later, asserting, “If you are old and you have no health insurance … and you’re sick, you will die. You may die because you can’t get to a doctor when you should.”

Here’s a helpful reminder for Bernie Sanders: ObamaCare has failed. Spectacularly. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services this week announced that around 12.2 million Americans are currently registered under ObamaCare. Just how off-the-mark is this figure? In 2013, the Congressional Budget Office projected this number to be around 24 million. That’s a 50% recruitment rate.

The Democrat Party is railing against the Republican plan based on another CBO report earlier this week that estimates up to 24 million more uninsured Americans by 2026 if ObamaCare is repealed. Set aside the fact millions of people would chose to forgo insurance and the unfortunate reality that the CBO has proven itself unreliable. Sadly, millions upon millions of Americans, despite (or should we say because of) the current mandate, can’t afford ObamaCare. To quote Sanders, they have basically been “thrown off of health insurance, not able to get to a doctor.” Yet something tells us he wouldn’t go so far as to claim the current system is causing “thousands of Americans” to die.