Senator Marshall: My Plan Will Fix America’s Healthcare Crisis
Senator Marshall Joins the Guy Benson Show on Fox News to Discuss his Healthcare Plan
Washington – On Tuesday, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas), joined The Guy Benson Show on Fox News Radioto discuss the tragic shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., and the GOP healthcare plan.
Click HERE or on the above image to watch the Senator’s full interview.
On the shooting of two West Virginia National Guards:
“Well, first of all, you know, I just extend my sympathy to those families in West Virginia who lost a loved one. We just spoke with West Virginia senators, and they gave us an update on the situation there. It was a horrible tragedy. The first thing I do is think about, you know, the past, we’re certainly safer today than we were a year ago, but unfortunately, there was hundreds of 1000s of violent criminal illegal aliens admitted to this country, many from countries of concern with terrorist backgrounds. It’s going to take a decade for us to work through all the problems that Joe Biden gave us because of all this untethered immigration. The President has an obligation to keep us safe. And I wake up in the morning, the first thing I think about as a US Senator is my family safe? Is your family safe? That’s always my top priority— So if there’s ways we can tighten down the screws more, let’s do it. I’m going to measure twice here and cut once, though, if that makes sense.
“I’ve got to admit, I’ve never thought twice about this. I hadn’t seen the exact statement that you’re referring to from the President or Secretary Nome. I think that would change a law. Wouldn’t it take a lot to change that, and I just can’t see that there would be support for that here in the Senate.”
On Republicans’ healthcare plan:
“Yeah, I think number one is, rather than empowering insurance companies, we want to empower patients. We want to turn patients into consumers again. So to do that, we would take some of these subsidy money that you’re talking about and put that into a healthcare savings account and let patients make the choices where to spend that money. But it has to be coupled with price tags that patients deserve to know exactly what something is going to cost, whether it’s a lab draw or an MRI, or a surgery, not an estimate; they need to know exactly what it’s going to cost. And then by doing that, we empower patients. We make them consumers again.
“That’s $1,000 a month for a family, and that’s everyone’s health care, not just people on the ACA. That’ll help people, whether you get your insurance through your job or if you’re on Medicare, for that matter— it would really drive down the true cost of healthcare.
“The Democrat plan, as you mentioned, they own this problem. Obamacare, the law of the land. For 15 years, premiums have doubled, the out-of-pocket deductibles have gone from 1000 a year to 10 to $15,000 a year. So they own the problem. Yes, we want to fix it. But rather than empower insurance companies, we want to empower consumers.”
On redirecting ACA subsidies to Health Savings Accounts:
“It is just that simple. So we could take these enhanced premiums and put them into an HSA account, a healthcare savings account, and let patients choose that. We would probably make that for the bronze plan, so you’ll have a lower premium because you’re going from a silver to a bronze plan. And then we’re going to add money to your HSA. And by the way, if you don’t use this eventually, you can convert it into some type of retirement account for you. It forces them to become consumers, and then it has to be paired with price tags. We would force every provider, hospitals, surgery centers, imaging centers, labs, everybody, to tell you what the cost of the procedure is before you have it done?”
On how to handle high-risk pools:
“A couple of things I would do, number one is, I would allow association health care plans to be sold across state lines, so Costco or Walmart can set up their own health insurance policy that you could buy from them, or Amazon or whoever it is, and then that gives you that group purchasing power across state lines. I would expand health ministry plans, and then really to take care of the protection the pre-existing conditions, I think we need some type of reinsurance pools so that, if you hit a certain amount of money each year, you go into this federally funded, at least partially federally funded, state ran reinsurance plan and help, you know, take care of those, those people that have these catastrophic events that you’re talking about.”
On whether Republicans should extend current ACA subsidies short-term:
“Well, I think it is a political decision. I would prefer not to do that, but politically it’s a reality. And I’m just guessing, if you would take a poll of the Republican Senate conference right now, a third are a hell no on that. A third don’t know what to do, and a third are people who are pushing for something like that.
“All I can tell you is, I would never agree to extend those unless they agree to the bigger plan as well. So we’re not going to give you two years of subsidy, right, and then sit here and then start negotiating. We’re going to agree on the framework. We’re going to pass the bill, and part of that bill would be to phase those out over I’m going to start off in a year. But I’d rather just take all those enhanced premiums and put them into an HSA. So if that’s the political reality of this, the people are going to see the biggest increases are those 50-60-year-olds, single, you know, families, or just a couple at home that are on Obamacare right now, they’re just going to see some huge, huge increases. And again, the Democrats own this – it’s just amazing how the legacy media has now said this is the Republicans’ problem when the Democrats have created it.”
On if Democrats want to work with Republicans to fix the ACA:
“I do, and we need to go down three roads. At the same time, the federal government doesn’t typically do that. We need a road on our side beside the vote next week. We need a road towards what a bipartisan bill, a comprehensive bill, looks like by the end of January, when the government’s going to close again. And then thirdly, there is some type of a reconciliation bill, just like how they like they passed Obamacare on a total Democrat vote. We could also try to fix healthcare with the total Republican vote. So, we have to go down all three of these roads at the same time.
“I think that you would find the same people who voted to open the government are some of the people most interested in trying to fix healthcare. I think as a democrat party, they’d much rather just play the blame game and just say, you know, this Obamacare cratered under Donald Trump’s watch, and therefore it’s Republicans, and they want to ride that all the way to next November. But all politics aside, I just want to fix the problem. That’s why I came here. You mentioned I’m a doctor. I also ran a hospital for 15 years. I think I’m the only member up here in Congress who’s run a hospital and was a physician as well. I oversaw health departments. I get health care, and the plan I’m describing will fix this. One other random thought here is that 90% of political giving by insurance companies and their employees was to Democrats. So, in the background of all this, think about what that means and how the Democrats are trying to protect this cash cow for their buddies and the big insurance companies.”
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Contact: Payton Fuller
