Senator Marshall: Congress Will Be Judged on Whether We Can Fix Healthcare or Not
Senator Marshall Joins Mundo in the Morning
Washington – On Monday, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas), joined KCMO’s Mundo in the Morning with Pete Mundo to discuss his healthcare plan and the devastating end to the Kansas City Chiefs’ season.
Click HERE or on the image above to watch Senator Marshall’s full interview.
“Oh, Pete, my flags are at half-mast. My goodness, we are just lifting up Patrick and his family and all of Chief’s Kingdom. It’s a tragic injury, but the good news is we’re going to probably pick about number 10 in the draft, and you and I need to have a deep discussion. Do we go up? I mean, like a beast of a wide receiver, or do we need that edge rusher? And those are some big decisions for Chief’s Kingdom for this next coming draft.”
“No, sir, no, that would be an orthopedic. I would have assisted on that type of surgery in medical school, but that’s about the closest I’ve been.”
“And you know, it’s going to be a 9-to-10-month recovery. So that means Patrick’s going to probably miss September, would be my guess. And we’ll see what you know, the Chiefs are made up. And you know, this can’t be a one-man show, so we’ve got to get him healthy. Remember, Tom Brady came back after an injury, just like this, and even won several more championships. So you know, we can’t just live on the mountain top. This is what we drafted. As you know, for 10 years we’ve been, like, the last three or four people to draft, and then, frankly, it shows now.”
“Yeah, I thought that the whole game he was favoring it, and when you favor it, then he planted and his knee didn’t know what to do, and it’s almost like he hyperextended it. So I think your body’s compensating, right? You’ve got one injury going. And I don’t know what I’m going to guess, it was a cartilage saying, a cartilage chair, I’m not sure. But then, you know, the knees swell, and all of a sudden it hits that hard, cold ground. He’s exhausted already. He’s been running for his life for the whole game, and bought it being, and you know, I just, I was just sitting there thinking the whole game, my gosh, he’s just a play away from getting hurt. And sure enough, it happened right in front.”
On the Marshall healthcare plan:
“Yeah, people, this is going to be the defining issue from now until the November election, yeah, just like the border security was last time. This is it, and this Congress will be judged by whether we had the cajones to fix it or not. And you know, to your point, Obamacare law the land for 15 years, premiums that went up more than 200% but it’s the out-of-pocket that’s killing people. The out-of-pocket expenses went from $1,000 a year; now, most families are paying 10 to $15,000 a year. It’s unsustainable. The overregulation of Obamacare has created consolidation in the industry, whether it’s insurance companies or big hospital systems pharmacy benefit managers. So what the Marshall Plan does is, number one, address the fraud. There’s $25 billion of fraud each year in Obamacare. Happy to dive into that. The other thing we want to do is stop giving money to big insurance companies. We’re giving big insurance companies $150 billion a year. I mean, like direct money into their accounts, right? I mean, it is a slot machine for them, and then that drives up everybody’s prices. We want to start taking that money and put it in your health care savings account. We want you to be the consumer. And lastly, pair that with our price tags bill. We want you, as a consumer, just like on Black Friday, to go online, and you need your ACL repaired, and you’re there in your listing area, and every hospital pops up, and you’ll be surprised. There will be a 10x, maybe a 20x difference between the price of getting that ACL fixed at an outpatient surgical hospital versus a big, big university tackle hospital.”
On where the Democrats are at:
“You nailed it? So the Democrat Party wants this issue. The Democraty Party wants this company to be in a recession. They would. They wouldn’t mind as if we’re in World War three. That’s what they want. And so they’re willing to throw America under the bus to get the number one is to get back at Trump, and number two is to take control of the House, the Senate, and the White House eventually again as well. But, but there are 10, I bet there’s 20 Democrat senators that would like to fix this problem. And the question is, Will Chuck Schumer cut their knees off, and by cutting their knees off, is he can cut down? He can cut all their fundraising off? If you’re up for reelection, you’re at his mercy. They will primary you, then people will say, well, how did Nancy Pelosi keep power? She cut your knees off financially and politically. She took, you know, took you off your good committees. There are ways that they can do this. So Chuck Schumer is running for his life right now, and so the Democrat Party wants the issue. We got a handful of Democrats. So the question is, can I find 40 Republican senators and 20 Democrat senators that would support one bill, and so far, I haven’t found the magic potion. But every day I’m having those conversations. We have real relationships with these people across the aisle. I’m in a bipartisan prayer breakfast with most of them, you know, for five years now, once a week. And you can imagine, you know what your relationships are, you’ve been part of those, you know, a good Sunday school class, or a group of people, where you’re getting together weekly, praying for each other. So that’s where, if this is going to be solved, that’s where it’s going to happen.”
“Well, Pete, it’s a long shot right now, and all I can tell you is momentum is on our side. Every day I make progress. We make progress at the staff level, at the member level, every day we see, you know, the cost of health care $5 trillion, we’re spending 18% of our GDP, our price tag bills alone would bring down the spending on health care by a trillion dollars. 40 economists have looked at our bill and said it would bring down the spin from 5 trillion to 4 trillion. That’s $1,000 a month per family that we would save on health care by simply allowing patients to become consumers again. So they can’t argue against it. But they did. They did. I went down, and they voted against. I agreed to extend the subsidies by a year in exchange for the things I talked about. And they refused it. They refused to do it. So that’s the right now, the politics are winning. We will see if I can find it, because it’ll take 20. I can’t find 50 Republicans to agree on, on, on healthcare right now, but maybe I can get 40. I’ll try to get 50, but it’s, but I probably need at least 40.”
On reconciliation being an option:
“So there is, and I’ve been going down three roads at the same time, and that is the third row. And even today, we’re building what that bill looks like. So we’ll add four or five or ten more pieces of this pharmacy benefit manager reform, and more money for some community health centers as well. And again, my focus is on bringing on the cost of health care for everybody. Mine’s the only plan out there that goes beyond just Obamacare, which is, you know, we could just pull the plug on that, but keep, keep those essential health benefits. I do want to take care of pre-existing conditions as an obstetrician, you know, half of pregnancies aren’t planned, and so many people showed up, and their insurance didn’t cover pregnancy. So it’s an uphill battle, Pete, but I’m just going to keep moving forward every day, try to better every day, try to get one more Democrat to support it. It is next to impossible, but I’m building that reconciliation package. I have actually been building it for three months now.
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Contact: Payton Fuller
