Senator Marshall: Our Plan Empowers the Patients – Not Big Insurance
Senator Marshall Joins Morning Joe on MSNBC
Washington – On Wednesday, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas), joined Morning Joe on MSNBC to discuss the latest on the GOP healthcare plan and the boat strikes in the Caribbean carrying poisonous drugs heading into America.
Click HERE or on the above image to watch the Senator’s full interview.
On Republicans’ healthcare plan:
“Well, we will present an option here in a couple [of] weeks, and the whole basis of what we want to do is, rather than empower insurance companies, we want to empower the American consumers.
“Right now, we’re giving $150 billion a year to big insurance companies. We believe we put that into a healthcare savings account, and couple that with price tags, it could save American families $1,000 a month – allow patients to become consumers again, put money in the health care savings account, and give them price tags on all health care procedures.”
Senator Marshall: “Yeah, we do, we have the plans. The whole basis is what I just described there, empowering patients to become consumers. Again. Look, women make 80% of the health care decisions for families. And by empowering them, by showing them prices and putting money in their pocket rather than asking; does my insurance coverage cover this or not? It’s going to start bringing prices down— but there’s more to it. We do need some type of reinsurance pool to take care of the high-risk people. We would like to have Association health care plans. We’re saying Amazon or a Costco, someone like that, could sell health plans across states, plans, and use the power of bringing lots of people together as well. It’s not one silver bullet, but there are lots of things we can do to help bring the real cost of health care down, not just floating it to the government to make up the difference.”
Mika Brezezinski: “So giving people money to pay the premiums is the starting point here?”
Senator Marshall: “Well, I think by putting money in the health care savings account and going towards their deductible, think about what Obamacare did under these 15 years. Obamacare, the rule of the land, resulted in doubling the premiums, but the out-of-pocket costs have went from $1,000 to $2,000 a year, to now they’re $10,000 to $15,000 a year. So this would be money that they could use for their out-of-pocket expenses as well. And we can use this money on Association health care plans that will help bring down the cost of those as well. But we’ve got to stop giving $150 billion to big insurance companies. We need to give that to patients, make them consumers again.”
Mika Brezezinski: “And what about the inflation for private insurance companies, not just Obamacare. How are you addressing that?”
Senator Marshall: “That’s the beauty of our price tags bill. This will impact everybody. According to some economists, this could result in a trillion dollars of savings per year for Americans by putting by forcing price tags and letting patients become consumers. Whether you’re in Obamacare or in an ERISA plan through your employer, that will impact everybody, even people on Medicare, they’ll be making those choices as well. And there’s lots more that we could do as well. Price neutrality is something that oftentimes one procedure done at an outpatient center could be compared to a surgical a full-service hospital. There might be a 10x difference in that price as well. So there are lots of little pieces we can pick off here to bring the cost of health care down.”
On additional ways to lower premiums (in case that wasn’t fully answered in the above segment):
“So what Obama did was increase regulation and cause consolidation of the industries. So you have a consolidation of insurance companies, of hospitals, etc. By rolling back those regulations, you’re going to have more players, more competitors. So let physicians own hospitals again—
is one simple solution, breaking up the pharmacy benefit managers, three of them, controlling 85% of the industry as well.
“I think it’s all about increasing competition. Obamacare did just the opposite – all these rules created overregulation, creating consolidation of the industry, just like Dodd-Frank did to the banking sector.”
On the Venezuela boat strikes:
“Yeah, I stand beside Secretary Hegseth. I’m reminded of something President Eisenhower once said: that I hate war as only a soldier who lived it can, with all its brutality and futility. Look, we’re losing 200 Americans every day to drug poisoning from these drug lords. This is a war, and it’s ugly. War is never pretty. I want to gather all the facts –of course, let’s gather the facts, but let’s not pronounce judgment here.
“All I can say is that the strike probably saved 1000s of American lives. Again, we’re losing a couple of 100 Americans every day to this drug poisoning. And I think that these strikes are slowing down the import of those deadly, deadly drugs, emphasize. This is poisoning, not just overdoses. These are poisonings.”
On President Trump pardoning the former president of Honduras:
Senator Marshall: “You know, I don’t know the details of that particular pardon. Happy to look into it, but I just can’t really speak to it.”
Mika Brezezinski: “So, like no thought on the fact that he was pardoned again?”
Senator Marshall: “I think it’s unfair to without me researching the details of that pardon, to give you any type of an answer, I’m a doctor. If you ask me a question, and I don’t have a good answer or a factual answer, I’m going to say I don’t know. I’m happy to go research it. I’m really locked in on health care right now, trying to bring down the cost of health care for Americans and make our lives more affordable.”
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Contact: Payton Fuller
