Senator Marshall: The Marshall Plan Will Save Families $1,000 a Month
Senator Marshall Joins CNN to Discuss His Healthcare Plan
Washington – On Wednesday, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas), joined Kaitlan Collins on CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins to detail his plan to bring down the cost of healthcare that is set to get a vote in the Senate.
Click HERE or on the image above to watch Senator Marshall’s full interview.
“Well, Kaitlan, I think number one is we need to recognize that health care is in a crisis. The Republicans want to put patients in charge, rather than insurance companies; the Democrats want to just throw good money after bad money. So, in my opinion, neither one of them accomplished what we’re hoping to do, but that’s why the Marshall Plan will work, and we’re going to get a vote on that tomorrow as well. Our bill number one extends the subsidies for one year, and then we start taking part of that money and putting you in control of your health care. We’re going to put money in your health care, say, your health care savings account, and couple that with price tags that we’re going to let patients see what all the prices are. We require every provider in healthcare to give us the price for their procedures. And when we couple price tags with your own savings account, then we’re going to see savings. American families will save $1,000 a month if we do the Marshall Plan.”
On the votes to advance his plan:
“We’re going to find out. You know, no, I don’t know. What we don’t know is, is that when people are forced to make a vote, what they may end up doing. I think that we realize, to your point, both the votes, the first two votes, are going to fail tomorrow. We have momentum on our side. This is a bipartisan approach to the problem. We extend the current extended enhanced subsidies for a year, then we put patients in control, and then we even use belt and suspenders to help people with preexisting conditions by establishing a high-risk pool.”
“They haven’t said they wouldn’t vote for it yet, so we’ll find out.”
“There’s a group of Republicans who will never vote for continuing these subsidies.”
“Well, I think the first step is, will the Democrats accept the work we’re doing on fraud? And even today, the Democrats voted down my anti-fraud bill on this. Look, a third of the patients that are on Obamacare right now did not file a claim last year for health insurance in any way, shape, or form. So, we think there’s $25 billion of fraud. If we can’t get past the fraud issue, it’s going to be hard to go beyond this. But regardless, I’m not quitting. No matter what you say tonight, I’m not quitting. I’m going to keep trying. I think we got momentum on our side.”
On the best way to move forward:
“I think that Democrats need to come across the aisle and vote for our bill. Look, I don’t think it’s feasible for me to get 53 Republican votes, but I may be able to get 40. So why can’t 40 Republicans and 20 Democrats vote on my bill? We give the Democrats what they want. We extend the Biden subsidies, and the Republicans get what we want. We want to put patients in control.”
On fixing what Democrats broke:
“Well, I can’t change that. Look, tackling Obamacare is like tackling a buffalo that just ran through a barbed wire fence. And every time you try to peel off a layer of that barbed wire, you get poked. It’s a tough deal. But regardless, however we can skin this cat, I want to do it. Our bill accomplishes all the goals, and it’s bipartisan.”
“Well, certainly let’s go to the situation of today. Obamacare gave us $15,000 deductibles. So, this will probably put $1,000 a person, maybe $1,500 a person, depending on your age. So a family of four. Let’s say the couple is 40 years old. That’s going to be $4,000 in your savings account. If you pair that with my price transparency bill, you’re going to see the cost of health care drop 20% so we’re not going to fix this overnight. It took us 15 years of failed Obamacare policies to get us here, but this will start moving us back in the right direction, and there are other things we need to do. As far as this person with the pre-existing conditions that develops cancer, that has this huge, huge health care issue, that’s why we want to put them into a high-risk reinsurance pool and help take care of them as well.”
“I’m not sure what we can say. It takes 60 votes for us to reverse this. Obamacare was done with just Democratic votes. Republicans have had multiple solutions out there, but again, this is a hard problem to tackle. I can’t change the past. Here we are. Let’s be pragmatic today. Let’s go forward with our bill, which is going to drive the cost of health care down.”
“I think the premiums expire. We do have a solution, but I need to find 60 votes to vote yes on it.”
On enhanced subsidies expiration:
“Look, I’m doing my very best. First, for people who are making less than $125,000 a year, the original Obamacare premium is going to stay there, and that’s going to keep covering 80% of their premium. The people who are seeing the bigger rise are the folks who are making over $125,000 a year. I’m doing everything I can. I’d like to expand the healthcare savings account. I want to expand community health centers. We want to take on the pharmacy benefit managers. But it takes 60 votes, and if we can’t get 60 votes, then we’ll have to go through the reconciliation process.”
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Contact: Payton Fuller
