Senator Marshall: Republicans Will Have a Healthcare Bill Ready to Go in December
Senator Marshall Joins CNN to Discuss the Republican Plan to Bring Down Healthcare Costs
Washington – On Monday, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas), joined Kaitlan Collins on CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins to discuss the Republican plan to lower healthcare costs, what these reforms will look like, and how Senate Republicans will get it across the finish line.
Click HERE or on the image above to watch Senator Marshall’s full interview.
On whether or not the House should hold a vote next month on the ACA:
“I don’t know if he should or shouldn’t. I want to get locked in on bringing down the cost of healthcare, regardless. And I think that’s what you’re going to see the House doing as well as us doing. We want everyone to have meaningful, affordable access to healthcare. We want to make people healthy again.
“And let’s talk about how we’re going to do that. We’re sending $150 billion a year to big insurance companies. Let’s take that $150 billion, let’s give a part of that to consumers, to patients, and set up better HSAs for them. Give them more choices out there. Let’s expand community health centers where people can get access to more primary care as well. So let’s talk about solutions. Like Senator Merkley said, let’s focus on the future, and we’re ready to get to work.”
On how Republicans plan to lower healthcare costs:
Senator Marshall: “Yeah, let’s focus just on the people in Obamacare. The good news is the Democrats all agree with us that it’s unaffordable, that it didn’t work. So number one—”
Kaitlan Collins: “They don’t all agree. Senator Bernie Sanders and folks might agree.”
Senator Marshall: “I’ve heard a lot of speeches like that. So anyway, I think number one is we address the fraud within that program. There’s about $25 billion of fraud I talked about already. Let’s take that $150 billion we’re giving insurance companies and give about a third of that back to patients, to consumers, to set up their own health care savings accounts. Beyond that, there’s work to be done with rolling back the PBMs when it comes to prescription drug prices. Trump RX is going to be something else that will work. We can expand access to association healthcare plans to ministry plans as well. We want to set up high-risk pools, reinsurance pools in every state as well. So there are a lot of things we can do. These are not new concepts. Speaker Johnson, I have been working on this together for years.”
On the healthcare bill that the GOP wants to pass:
Senator Marshall: “We’ll have… a side-to-side bill… when they get their vote on Obamacare subsidies.”
Kaitlan Collins: “You’re going to have a healthcare bill by December?”
Senator Marshall: “We will. We’ve been working on this very, very hard for several years. And again, Speaker Johnson and I have done one several years ago, but we’ll get a new one. Getting it together, we’re bringing the pieces together, just like I discussed. Again, taking $150 billion rather than giving it to big insurance companies. Let’s empower patients, make them consumers again. Let them make the choices that they want to make. The other big piece to the bill, and again this is already written, you can look it up, it’s called our price tags bill, which is going to allow patients, before they have that knee surgery done, they can compare one hospital to another, compare the prices and the outcomes.”
Kaitlan Collins: “So you’re saying Republicans will have a comprehensive healthcare plan to vote on when the Senate votes on those extending the subsidies?”
Senator Marshall: “Yes, we will.”
Kaitlan Collins: “And it’s going to address people who have cancer or pre-existing conditions or don’t know what to do if there are their premiums are spiking at the end?”
Senator Marshall: “Absolutely, we’re going to have to figure out some type of an off-ramp for people that are over the 400% of income, especially we have got to figure out what to do with them. It’s very tough. Again, the insurance companies have put the shaft to American consumers for so long, our premiums have gone up, what, they doubled since Obamacare caught care came around. And the insurance companies, the values of their stock have gone up more than 1,000%.”
Kaitlan Collins: “So you’ll vote no on the healthcare subsidies vote next month, I presume?”
Senator Marshall: “Absolutely.”
Kaitlan Collins: “And then you’ll have this plan laid out, and Leader Thune is going to bring it to the floor?”
Senator Marshall: “Yes, but it’s not going to be perfect. I think there’ll be more work to do after that. We’re going to do as much as we can to get something ready by then, and then hopefully, before the January 30 deadline of this next continuing resolution, we can work on a bipartisan way. And by the way, these eight people that walked across the line, you know, they are absolutely profiles in courage, and they’re going to be very central to what this bill looks like.”
On why didn’t Republicans ever try to fix Obamacare before:
Senator Marshall: “Speaker Johnson and I introduced one several years ago.”
Kaitlan Collins: “So will it look like that, do you think?”
Senator Marshall: “I think it’ll be a lot of changes since then, a lot of more water underneath the bridge. I think we’re going to be much more aggressive in taking money away from big insurance companies and giving them to patients.”
On how insurance companies are taking billions in subsidies:
“So, two points. Number one, people in Obamacare are typically more high risk. That they’ve been pushed out of other situations. Secondly, typically, it’s 10 or 20% of people who aren’t going to file a claim, but not 35 or 40. But regardless, I think Americans want us to be frugal with their money. If there is fraud there, we want to get rid of it. And I think there’s very simple ways we can do that. And one way is, you know, everyone should be able to pay a little bit in. I think if you have the monthly withdrawal from your account, you’re going to recognize that. So people need to be paying something into the plan.”
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Contact: Payton Fuller
