Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 138 ｜ Health Care

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. I hope everyone is having a wonderful day. Today we're going to

00:00:06.480 talk about a very exciting subject, which is healthcare and healthcare insurance. Isn't that

00:00:13.820 fun? Aren't you so pumped to be talking about this? I am. Just kidding. I am excited to talk

00:00:19.900 about it. I'm always excited to talk to you guys. The reason that we're talking about healthcare,

00:00:24.340 even though it doesn't sound like that exciting of a topic, is because it's a very popular subject

00:00:29.940 right now among presidential candidates, particularly Democratic presidential candidates,

00:00:34.760 and has been for quite a few years. Because the fact of the matter is, frankly, people don't really

00:00:40.820 know what healthcare coverage is, how it is distributed, how to pay for it. And so there's

00:00:48.900 a lot of confusion about this industry. And I will say that I'm not going to offer all of the clarity

00:00:56.260 that a human being can give on the healthcare industry. Why? Because I myself am not an expert.

00:01:01.220 And like in all of these things, I am coming from a very well-researched perspective to gain all of

00:01:06.840 the knowledge that I possibly can, the most truthful and holistic perspective that I possibly can.

00:01:12.560 But I'm not a healthcare professional. I am not an insurance professional. And so I'm going to tell

00:01:20.400 you all that I can from all of the research that I've gathered. But as always, please feel free to

00:01:26.620 fact check me. Those of you who maybe are in this industry and know all about government subsidized

00:01:33.580 healthcare and what that plan is, insurance, healthcare, all of this stuff. If you want to

00:01:40.580 correct me, fact check me, send me an email, please do so. I love to learn more from you guys,

00:01:46.660 but know that I'm at least at the very least going into this, having done a lot of research and trying

00:01:52.600 to give you the full perspective that I possibly can, uh, from my position. And we are going to talk

00:02:00.760 about what the Democrats think about healthcare. We say healthcare, we really mean healthcare coverage.

00:02:05.800 We really mean insurance, how people are going to pay for healthcare. Healthcare really isn't the topic

00:02:10.760 of debate. It's healthcare coverage, how people are covered, how people are insured, how people

00:02:16.120 pay for healthcare. So that's also important. It sounds like a small difference. It's not.

00:02:21.140 When people say healthcare is a human right, that's different, different than saying healthcare

00:02:25.140 coverage is a human right. But, uh, you might hear me say healthcare sometimes just as a shortened way

00:02:33.100 of saying healthcare insurance, but no, that's essentially what we're talking about. So you might be

00:02:38.440 in high school, you might be in college. And if so, you're probably on your parents' insurance. You can

00:02:43.440 remain on your parents' insurance until you're 26 years old. Maybe your parents don't want you to

00:02:48.100 remain on their insurance when you get your first job, maybe when you're 21 or 22, but you might be

00:02:52.400 on your parents' insurance. So you might not know all that much, uh, about how our insurance system

00:02:57.580 works, or maybe you're in your forties, fifties, and sixties, and you still don't really know how

00:03:01.740 healthcare coverage works. And that is all good. No matter what, we're going to go through the basics

00:03:06.160 together. And we're going to talk about Medicare for all. We're going to talk about healthcare for all.

00:03:09.960 We're going to talk about the current U S system and the very good sounding promise that Bernie Sanders

00:03:16.760 and other democratic presidential candidates are offering that healthcare coverage will be free

00:03:22.740 and it'll make our lives so much better. We are going to see if that is actually true. So first let

00:03:31.940 us talk about what the U S healthcare, well, let me say something first. Let me say something first,

00:03:37.040 because maybe you're listening to this episode on a recommendation of a friend and you are either in

00:03:42.100 the middle, maybe you're even center left, maybe you're even far left. And if so, I welcome you.

00:03:46.780 And I just want to give you a pat on the back and maybe even a hug. If you would let me for being

00:03:51.080 here, knowing that this is a conservative podcast, you are opening up your mind to a different side of

00:03:55.520 the debate. And I really respect that no matter what your views are. So let me just say though,

00:04:00.320 that neither side, okay, neither side to you, my new liberal friend wants, uh, people to die.

00:04:07.020 Okay. No one wants people to die. Republicans don't hate poor people. I promise you. There's

00:04:11.220 a reason why Republicans give so much in charity in general compared to their liberal friends. Uh,

00:04:16.520 there's a reason why there, it is typically, uh, Christians and conservative religious people

00:04:21.300 that are running charities and organizations that actually directly help, uh, the marginalized

00:04:26.100 and the poor and those who don't have healthcare coverage. It's simply a difference in what we

00:04:31.960 believe the best methods are to care for the people that cannot care for themselves or who cannot afford

00:04:37.560 to care for themselves. So we need to just establish that from the front because you hear a lot of

00:04:43.960 people say, uh, you know, who are supporters of Bernie Sanders say, well, Republicans just hate poor

00:04:49.040 people. They just want poor people to die. Oh, you're not pro-life. You're just pro-birth. Why? 0.98

00:04:53.780 Because you don't believe in Medicare for all. Well, that's silly. And we're going to talk about 0.94

00:04:57.840 why that's silly, but of course it's a lot easier to talk in talking points than to actually say

00:05:02.460 what's true. But to you, any liberal friend that in the off chance you are listening to this,

00:05:07.400 we do not want people to die. No one does. No one does. Well, maybe some random people do,

00:05:12.380 but as a rule, no one does. Okay. So it's just a different methodology. And we're going to talk

00:05:16.820 about why that difference is. So first to the basics, what is the U S healthcare system? It's a little

00:05:22.180 bit complicated, uh, because we are different than that of most developed countries in that it's not

00:05:28.320 a nationally paid health service. It's not a single payer health service. It's not a multi-payer health

00:05:34.520 fund. Uh, the U S health system can be described as a hybrid system. So this means that it is somewhat

00:05:41.180 of a complicated network of multiple payers involving private and government health insurance

00:05:46.720 options. Uh, in 2014, 48% of U S healthcare spending came from private funds, 28% came from

00:05:55.420 households and 20% coming or came from private businesses. Uh, the federal government accounted

00:06:01.660 for 28% of spending while state and local governments accounted for 17%, uh, for a large majority of

00:06:10.280 Americans, uh, their employers actually pay for their healthcare to, uh, private insurance

00:06:16.320 companies that cover their medical expenses after a certain deductible is met, uh, until

00:06:22.620 then the medical expenses, uh, some of the medical expenses are paid out of pocket by the person

00:06:27.860 who is being insured, also known as the policy holder. Now a deductible, uh, let me just explain

00:06:34.380 what that is in case you don't know, if you don't know, there's no shame in that it's the amount

00:06:38.300 of, uh, amount of money paid out of pocket by the policy holder. That's you, the person who

00:06:42.860 is insured, uh, before an insurance provider will pay any expenses, the higher your deductible,

00:06:48.600 the more you have to pay out of pocket, uh, before your insurance actually kicks in. And so if you

00:06:53.600 have a $500 deductible, you will pay $500 out of pocket, uh, for your medical services or until,

00:07:00.060 uh, your insurance company will start pitching in. That's not $500 for one medical service that is,

00:07:05.160 uh, over time. And so you will have to reach $500 out of pocket, uh, before, uh, before the

00:07:11.280 insurance company will actually start pitching in and helping you take care of those services.

00:07:15.080 After that, you pay something called a copay, which is a fixed fee that, uh, you pay from then on.

00:07:24.760 So some more vocab, in case you don't know, a premium is how much you pay for insurance. It

00:07:29.240 depends on the policy you get, which can depend on your age. It can depend on your health history,

00:07:33.820 et cetera. So when you buy your insurance policy, uh, that's the kind of insurance that you get from

00:07:38.920 a particular insurance company will outline under what terms and in what, uh, situations insurance

00:07:44.960 will help you pay. It will tell you how much your premium is, how much your deductible is. Of course,

00:07:50.040 there are all kinds of insurance besides medical insurance, but in this particular episode, uh,

00:07:54.960 that's what we are talking about. Uh, since healthcare can be really expensive depending on

00:08:01.060 how sick you are and the services you need, uh, insurance becomes very important. It becomes

00:08:06.620 necessary. Hence the debate we are having and have had for a long time over, uh, how those who

00:08:13.500 cannot afford insurance, those who maybe don't have jobs are covered or don't have jobs that

00:08:19.320 provide them insurance are covered. Uh, America, this is a talking point. You hear a lot from the

00:08:24.520 left. America is the only developed country without universal healthcare. Uh, this is how the world

00:08:30.260 health organization describes this term. Universal healthcare means all people in communities can use

00:08:36.500 the promotive, preventative, curative, rehabilitative, and palliative health services. They need of

00:08:43.640 sufficient quality to be effective while also ensuring that the use of these services does not

00:08:49.720 expose the user to financial hardship. Well, there's just a lot of interesting caveat. You can see where

00:08:55.280 the world health organization is coming from. There's a lot of interesting caveats in there that is not

00:08:59.920 necessarily describe universal healthcare, maybe in a perfect world, but the whole quality and

00:09:04.620 effectiveness and no financial hardship, we'll get into that. Um, we do have government run insurance

00:09:12.880 companies or we do have government run healthcare coverage. We have Medicare, Medicaid, Children's

00:09:18.780 Health Insurance Program or CHIP. And we do have the VA, uh, one third of Americans are covered by

00:09:23.860 Medicare, Medicaid, or CHIP. Uh, Medicare is a federal program that provides healthcare coverage.

00:09:29.900 If you are 65 or above or under 65 and you have a disability, no matter what your income is, uh,

00:09:37.780 Medicaid is a state and federal program that provides, uh, health coverage. If you have a low income,

00:09:44.940 uh, if you're eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid, duly eligible, you can have both. You can apply for

00:09:50.560 both and possibly be granted both. Uh, they can work together to give you healthcare coverage and lower

00:09:56.360 your costs. CHIP is regulated by the federal government, but it's administered at the state

00:10:01.580 level. So eligible children from families, um, at about between 200% and 300% at the federal poverty

00:10:09.320 level. So that is about $44,000 to $67,000 for a family of four, uh, under certain circumstances,

00:10:17.960 pregnant women can also be eligible for a CHIP coverage in some States. Now there are still people

00:10:24.320 who are uninsured. We have these programs, but there are still people who are uninsured. Maybe

00:10:28.200 they don't get coverage through their employer. They couldn't qualify though for Medicare or Medicaid,

00:10:32.900 uh, especially if you are a young, a young adult who is in a state, uh, that didn't expand Medicaid.

00:10:39.240 Uh, maybe they didn't apply at all. So there are people who are uninsured. There are people

00:10:44.540 who are what you might call or what you might hear called underinsured, which is why a huge reason

00:10:50.400 why Obama enacted the affordable care act, AKA Obamacare back in 2010. The purpose of this

00:10:58.740 legislation was to make it more affordable to purchase health insurance. They also wanted to

00:11:03.700 lower the cost of healthcare, reduce the growing costs of Medicare and Medicaid, uh, throughout the

00:11:08.820 United States is what they, that's what they said they wanted to do. Uh, it promised to do this by

00:11:13.940 offering consumers discounts. These were known as, or are known as tax credits on government sponsored

00:11:19.060 health insurance plans. They wanted to expand Medicaid assistance, uh, the Medicaid assistance

00:11:24.460 program to include more people who don't have it in their budgets to pay for healthcare. Uh,

00:11:29.460 the affordable care act changed some of the rules insurance companies had to follow. So in the past,

00:11:34.620 if you had a preexisting medical condition, you could be turned down by an insurance company for

00:11:39.580 coverage or your cost of coverage could be really high, but under the affordable care act,

00:11:44.440 you no longer could be turned down or charged more for preexisting conditions.

00:11:49.060 Uh, so under, under ACA, under Obamacare, you only receive discounts to help, uh, to help offset

00:11:55.060 health insurance costs. If your household income is between one and four times the federal poverty

00:12:00.120 level, which is a number of the government uses to determine the minimum amount of money needed for

00:12:06.400 food needed for shelter, other basic needs. Uh, you can, you can choose to apply these credits to your

00:12:13.840 premiums to lower your monthly insurance bill, or you can wait until the end of the year and you can put

00:12:18.780 them, you can declare them on your tax return. So, uh, Americans who, uh, who meets certain income

00:12:25.120 based criteria have to buy law under the affordable care act have insurance. They have to have Medicare

00:12:31.680 or Medicaid, or they have to pay a penalty. If they don't, uh, that will be levied when you file your tax

00:12:37.740 return. So this requirement is commonly referred to as the law's individual mandate, which was very,

00:12:43.700 well, I guess it's not really anymore and we'll get to why, but it was extremely controversial.

00:12:49.300 It was the most controversial part I would say of the affordable care act. Uh, Democrats said that

00:12:55.320 they included this individual mandate, this, uh, mandate that says you will pay a penalty if you

00:12:59.700 don't have insurance because they figured that it would force young and healthy people to enroll in

00:13:06.120 the healthcare exchanges. Something they said would, uh, offset the higher cost of covering people

00:13:11.820 with chronic diseases. They also assumed that people would take care of themselves better,

00:13:16.420 uh, which would theoretically reduce future healthcare expenses. That's what they said, but

00:13:21.700 Republicans were extremely opposed to this. They believe that the penalties would be, uh,

00:13:26.880 an unneeded burden on families who maybe weren't covered by private insurance, but didn't want or

00:13:32.280 couldn't afford Obamacare, but now had to buy the coverage or else they'd get penalized. Uh, so they saw

00:13:38.420 this as both counterproductive. They saw this as tyrannical. Uh, it's one thing they would say,

00:13:44.100 I think to expand Medicaid so that more people are covered. It's another thing to force people

00:13:48.220 who didn't have insurance to buy a, to buy a government plan that they don't want. Uh,

00:13:53.200 they were afraid that this would harm low income families the most. And they were actually right 1.00

00:13:58.600 about that. So, uh, Republicans were correct. According to the IRS, more than half the total penalty, 0.91

00:14:04.700 uh, payments, uh, were by people who, uh, had, who, uh, were earning less, sorry, I got mixed up for a

00:14:13.180 second, who were earning less than $50,000 a year. 86% was from people earning less than a hundred

00:14:19.580 thousand dollars a year. So that is why, if you remember, you might not remember, depending on how

00:14:24.560 old you are, uh, in 2013, Ted Cruz and a few other conservatives, it was mostly Ted Cruz put up a

00:14:30.220 fight, uh, that ended in a government shutdown to try to defund Obamacare. It was unsuccessful.

00:14:36.880 Uh, Ted Cruz took a lot of flack from both the right and the left for that, but it also is what

00:14:42.460 kind of launched him onto the political scene. So he maybe saw that as a win in some ways. Uh,

00:14:47.440 then in 2017, a Republican controlled Congress eliminated the mandate, which went into effect

00:14:52.840 this year. Uh, so we don't know the results of that quite yet, but Democrats of course were upset by

00:14:58.420 this because of how many people wouldn't be insured. And yes, that is true that some people

00:15:03.500 wouldn't be insured because the mandate is no longer valid, but that's just because now they

00:15:08.020 have a choice of whether or not to be insured. They're not kicked off. Uh, they just are not being

00:15:13.760 forced to, to use, to be on Obamacare anymore. So advocates of Obamacare would say that it slowed

00:15:21.520 the rise of healthcare costs and that it did this through providing insurance for millions and made

00:15:26.560 preventative care free. Um, it's good because they would say that it requires insurance plans

00:15:32.280 to cover essential health benefits, including mental health, addiction, chronic diseases.

00:15:37.560 Uh, they said that one good thing was that insurance companies couldn't deny people or raise costs for

00:15:43.060 preexisting conditions, but those who are against it are going to cite the harm that it did. If you

00:15:49.180 talk to any of them, that three to 5 million people lost their employment, employment based health

00:15:54.020 insurance, because a lot of businesses found it, uh, more cost effective to pay the penalty and let

00:15:59.440 their employees purchase insurance plans on the exchanges themselves. Uh, other small businesses

00:16:04.160 found that they can get, uh, better plans through the state run exchanges. So a lot of people lost

00:16:09.380 plans that they really liked. They lost the quality coverage that they actually preferred. And so this

00:16:14.780 is where that big lie that I am sure you've heard was uncovered that, uh, Obama kept on saying,

00:16:19.680 if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Obama repeated that over and over again.

00:16:24.980 Then in 2013, he, uh, said, well, that's not, that's not really what I said. That's it. No,

00:16:31.280 we were just being misunderstood all along, but he did. It was a promise that Republicans knew that

00:16:36.560 he could not keep with this plan. PolitiFact explains it like this. The affordable care act

00:16:41.820 tried to allow existing health plans to continue under a complicated process called grandfathering,

00:16:47.120 which basically said insurance companies could keep selling plans. If they followed certain

00:16:51.980 rules. The problem for insurers was that the Obamacare rules were strict. If the plans deviated

00:16:57.360 even a little, they would lose their grandfathered status in practice. That meant insurers canceled

00:17:02.600 plans that didn't meet new standards. Obamacare required services that a lot of people are required

00:17:10.800 coverage that a lot of people don't need like maternity care. That meant if someone had an insurance

00:17:16.000 plan that didn't cover maternity care, that plan had to be canceled, which really was bad for a lot

00:17:21.100 of people. So if you're a 60 year old guy, you don't need a plan that covers maternity care or

00:17:26.280 pediatric care, because why would you? Uh, your plan got canceled. If you were that guy, this happened

00:17:31.880 to millions of people and replacing the affordable plan that you liked in favor of another plan costs a

00:17:38.640 lot of money. Uh, Obama and his team lied about this over and over again, saying that there's nothing

00:17:45.180 in the plan that pushes people off their healthcare coverage. That was demonstrably not true. That was

00:17:51.780 a lie. And Obama actually did somewhat apologize later in 2013. He was in an interview with Chuck

00:17:57.660 Todd and he said, okay, that wasn't entirely accurate. Maybe I exaggerated. Well, yeah, that's a big

00:18:03.720 lie to tell, I would say. Um, and also I just want to note that you hear Obama, you hear Biden, you hear

00:18:10.320 media pundits saying that Obama had a scandal free, uh, presidency, that there, uh, were no bumps in the

00:18:17.320 road, that there's nothing that happened that was scandalous. Well, you might think that because of the

00:18:23.180 media coverage of his presidency, both then and now, but the fact of the matter is this was a big deal.

00:18:29.860 Then the fact that he said, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. And then he admitted that

00:18:34.520 he was lying about that. Of course he said he exaggerated it, but that's a lie and maybe props

00:18:40.120 to him for actually owning up to that. I mean, that's something, there's something to be said

00:18:45.300 for that, but that's a big lie that affected a lot of people's lives. And really, I would say

00:18:52.140 manipulated a lot of people into believing that this would be a good thing. And they ended up on the

00:18:56.480 wrong side of it. And so there have been scandals, of course, in the Obama presidency, Benghazi fast

00:19:04.220 and furious IRS. It's a different episode for a different day. But the fact of the matter is this

00:19:07.780 was a big lie that affected people in a really negative way. There were a lot of people that

00:19:12.000 were upset about this in 2013. A Pew research poll found that the number of people who saw Obama as

00:19:17.680 untrustworthy actually rose by 15 points in 2013. Uh, and that just proves exactly what we said that

00:19:25.760 people were paying attention and that they were mad. They didn't want to be, they didn't want to be

00:19:30.020 lied to, uh, because here's the thing. People don't like their healthcare coverage mess with

00:19:34.480 if they like it. They don't, they don't want to mess with a lot of people do. A lot of people are

00:19:39.880 satisfied with the coverage that they get, at least for the most part, at least not enough to hand it

00:19:43.600 over to the federal government. Um, and then there was also the controversial contraceptive mandate,

00:19:49.100 which, uh, required insurance companies and employers who provided health insurance to cover the cost of

00:19:55.100 birth control. There are a lot of religious organizations who are opposed to birth control

00:19:59.700 from a religious and moral standpoint. So forcing them to pay for it would be an infringement on

00:20:05.460 religious liberty. The contraception mandate wasn't actually in Obamacare legislation originally,

00:20:11.680 but it came later in 2011 through, uh, regulations. And there were only narrow exemptions for this,

00:20:17.300 uh, for churches, but did not include religious nonprofits or religious corporations.

00:20:21.580 And then in 2014, there was a Supreme court case involving Hobby Lobby. You might know a little

00:20:27.720 bit about that, uh, which is a corporation that is owned by Christians. And the court ruled that

00:20:32.620 closely held religious for-profit corporations did not have to provide, uh, birth control in their

00:20:39.660 insurance plans for their employees. Uh, the Catholic organization, uh, Little Sisters of the Poor

00:20:45.000 endured years of court battles until May, 2016. Uh, the Supreme court actually ruled in their

00:20:51.440 favor and instructed the lower courts that had ruled against them to provide the government

00:20:55.520 with an opportunity to find a way to provide services for the women who want birth control

00:21:00.920 without involving the Little Sisters. So really everyone won, but of course the left is not

00:21:05.640 necessarily happy with that because they don't believe that religious liberty should trump

00:21:09.240 what they think is a right birth control. So this is from Beckettlaw.org. In May, 2017,

00:21:15.540 President Trump issued an executive order directing HHS and other federal agencies to protect the

00:21:21.980 Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious nonprofits from the mandate. On October 6th,

00:21:26.420 2017, the government issued a new rule with a broader religious exemption. In June, 2018,

00:21:32.080 the Little Sisters original case was finally resolved with an order by the U S court of appeals for the

00:21:37.060 10th circuit. On November 7th, 2018, HHS issued a rule finalizing the Little Sisters religious

00:21:42.860 exemption. So, uh, that means that now, at least for now, I mean, this can always be, uh, there can

00:21:52.060 always be pushed back to this. There's always going to be people who are saying no religious liberty is

00:21:57.620 not, is not a worthy exemption. It's not a worthy reason not to provide your employees with health

00:22:02.440 insurance, but for now religious liberty did win a particular battle. But this is also part of the

00:22:08.220 reason why Christians really didn't like evangelical Christians really didn't like Obama because they

00:22:13.280 felt targeted, uh, by his policies. They felt again, that Christianity, that religious views were

00:22:19.840 being mocked in some way and religious liberty was secondary to their agenda, particularly when it came

00:22:26.940 to something like birth control. And so there was a lot of controversy over that. There's a many

00:22:32.260 moral and policy reasons why people did not like Obamacare. Uh, according to the Kaiser family

00:22:38.260 foundation on December 14th, 2018, a federal district court, uh, judge in Texas issued a ruling

00:22:45.760 challenge. You probably remember this not that long ago, uh, issued a ruling challenging the future of

00:22:51.200 the 2010 affordable care act. The judge sided with Republican state attorneys general that

00:22:56.600 and ruled that since the 2017 tax bill passed by Congress zeroed out the penalty for not having

00:23:02.600 health insurance. That's that individual mandate. The ACA is invalid. Democrat attorneys general have

00:23:08.740 already taken actions to appeal the judge's ruling in the case. And due to the government shutdown,

00:23:13.960 the fifth circuit court of appeals has paused the case. So that was, uh, back a few months ago.

00:23:20.680 This is from the Kaiser family foundation. So the question is, why does all of this matter?

00:23:25.680 Now the controversy of Obamacare, the fact that we even had Obamacare. The reason is because

00:23:30.540 Obamacare was the primer for our current conversation about healthcare. It operated on

00:23:35.640 the premise that healthcare is a right and therefore everyone must be covered or else. And it was the

00:23:42.040 or else and is the or else that conservatives did not and do not like because it ended up being that

00:23:49.360 everyone must be covered how the federal government wants you to be covered or else you will lose your

00:23:54.940 plan and you will be fined by the government. If you do not get Obamacare after losing that plan.

00:24:02.660 Now, like I said, in 2017, Republicans repealed the mandate. So people would no longer, uh, no longer

00:24:08.460 be fined who didn't sign up for Obamacare, but it's still all hangs in the balances. We're talking about

00:24:13.080 Medicare for all, and this is causing a lot of contention. So that is why you hear Democrats, uh, say

00:24:20.760 Republicans don't want you to have healthcare coverage, that they don't care about poor people, that they

00:24:25.300 don't, uh, care about people being taken care of because we didn't like Obamacare and we don't like

00:24:33.080 the idea of Medicare for all. And we'll get into why in a little bit, but it's true that Republicans

00:24:36.820 don't want you to be forced to have coverage that you don't want. Republicans, uh, don't want you to be

00:24:42.160 fined. Republicans don't think that forcing higher taxes to pay for Obamacare, pay for Medicare for all,

00:24:47.240 whatever it is, is a good idea. Republicans, uh, don't think that the federal government needs to

00:24:52.080 be involved in healthcare in this way. Republicans don't want the federal government to infringe on

00:24:56.500 religious liberty in this way. Uh, so it's not so black and white as saying Republicans don't want

00:25:00.860 poor people to be covered. That's not true. We do not like this methodology. Um, or I should just say

00:25:06.400 this method. And, uh, yet this is what Democrats are now running on, especially Bernie Sanders.

00:25:11.940 They're running for not just healthcare for all, which could be a mixture of private and public

00:25:15.860 options, but Medicare for all. So everyone is on, uh, the same insurance, meaning we are all on

00:25:22.220 Medicare. There is no choice. You get no private health insurance, no matter who your employer is.

00:25:26.780 We are all on government funded healthcare, no matter what, uh, this would, the pro is it would

00:25:34.580 indeed guarantee that everyone had some kind of healthcare coverage, but it would also significantly

00:25:39.500 lower the quality of care for everyone involved. And we will explain why, uh, Democrats say this is

00:25:45.280 going to lower the cost of medicine. It's going to lower the cost of basic care. This, uh, is

00:25:50.720 obviously going to eliminate premiums. It's going to eliminate deductibles because it's going to be

00:25:55.480 funded by the government, which as you know, means it is funded by you and me. It is funded by

00:26:00.320 taxpayers. It is not free for anyone unless you are a part of the low tax bracket that essentially

00:26:05.200 doesn't pay anything in taxes. Uh, then you are getting something for absolutely nothing and everyone

00:26:09.500 else is paying it for you, but for the rest of us, we are paying for it. Uh, Kamala Harris,

00:26:14.820 a presidential candidate jumped on board with this idea a few months ago, saying at a CNN town hall,

00:26:20.120 uh, the idea is that everyone gets access to medical care and you don't have to go to the process of

00:26:24.700 going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork,

00:26:29.960 all of the delay that that might require. Uh, let's eliminate all of that. Let's move on.

00:26:35.640 She said, sounds good. I mean, I hate paperwork. And so maybe that sounds good to you too. Uh,

00:26:41.140 but let's think about that for a second, going through the government, going through government

00:26:45.940 bureaucrats for things is always so efficient and helpful, right? Like think about your last trip to

00:26:51.860 the DMV when you had to report for jury duty, when you have to do anything that involves the government,

00:26:57.060 especially the federal government, the process is terrible. No, it's not efficient. It's not effective.

00:27:03.000 Why? Because there's no motivation for most government for, I won't say most a lot, not all,

00:27:09.720 maybe not most for a lot of government employees to be efficient and effective. There are hoops to

00:27:14.960 jump through and the government does not care whether or not you're happy with their service

00:27:18.160 because they know you have to use it. You got one place to go. There's no competition. It's not

00:27:22.980 like an insurance company or another company who cares about keeping or losing their customers and

00:27:27.940 therefore making them happy. Uh, the government does not care about that. Now Kamala Harris backtracked 1.00

00:27:34.360 later, uh, because guess what? This means that you are getting rid of the insurance industry

00:27:40.180 entirely, which makes up 18% of our nation's economy. And it obviously means kicking people 0.98

00:27:44.960 off the healthcare plans they like. And so that wasn't really well received. And so she had to kind

00:27:49.620 of backpedal and say, Oh, okay. Maybe I didn't mean all of that. Uh, there's also the problem.

00:27:54.780 This is the big problem, uh, of how hospitals are going to stay in business. The reason is

00:28:00.660 because hospitals get paid significantly less by Medicare than they do by private insurance.

00:28:06.220 Uh, this is according to the New York times, uh, for a patient's knee replacement, Medicare will pay

00:28:11.300 a hospital $17,000. The same hospital can get more than twice as much or about $37,000 for the same

00:28:19.760 surgery on a patient with private insurance. That's because Medicare pays hospitals

00:28:24.760 about 87 cents for every dollar of their costs compared with private insurers that pay a dollar

00:28:31.200 45. Uh, so smaller rural hospitals, healthcare centers, uh, would probably have to shut down

00:28:40.180 in a Medicare for all system because they couldn't afford to provide the same services, or you're

00:28:45.020 going to see hospitals laying off, uh, droves of employees in order to just stay afloat and to be

00:28:50.760 able to pay for these services and to pay, uh, for, for the, for the treatments that people have to

00:28:56.260 get. Uh, that's the problem. That's the problem with Medicare for all that it cuts revenue for these

00:29:01.220 places so drastically, which means a few things. Hospitals will have to close down or they'll just

00:29:06.440 have to fire employees or, or, and really they will have to lower their quality of care.

00:29:12.100 Now proponents of Medicare for all say, no, no, no, that's not true. Hospitals can just cut costs

00:29:18.160 and cut profits without doing any of those things. It'll just take a little bit of sacrifice. It'll

00:29:23.080 be totally fine. But these are the same people who it shouldn't surprise us really don't have

00:29:27.780 a basic understanding of economics. These are the same people who believe that employers of

00:29:32.260 small businesses are just going to raise the minimum wage of their employees and take a huge cut

00:29:38.020 of their own profits without firing employees or automating, uh, employee tasks entirely.

00:29:43.360 And it might be true in some cases that hospitals are charging too much. That's not going to solve

00:29:49.440 the problem of the many, the vast majority of, I would say hospitals that simply will not be able

00:29:54.620 to afford to function in a Medicare for all system. Uh, the New York times also says this,

00:29:59.880 those in favor of the most far reaching changes, including Senator Bernie Sanders, who unveiled his

00:30:05.340 latest Medicare for all plan as part of his presidential campaign have remained largely

00:30:09.740 silent on the question of how the nation's fit, uh, 5,300 hospitals would be paid for patient care.

00:30:16.280 If they are paid more than Medicare rates, the final price tag for the program could balloon from the

00:30:21.260 already stratospheric estimate of upward of $30 trillion over a decade. So what that last part means is

00:30:29.480 if hospitals are paid more than they currently are now under Medicare, that's going to cost us,

00:30:35.340 tax taxpayers more. This is already going to cost us about 33, $30 trillion over a decade. And if

00:30:43.160 Medicare pays hospitals more than they do right now, so more than 87 cents for the cost of the actual

00:30:48.820 procedure, uh, then that's going to cost us a lot more than that. Uh, just another reminder,

00:30:55.660 just another reminder, nothing is free. Nothing is free. Healthcare will never be free. It cannot be

00:31:01.520 free. College cannot be free. Taxpayers are paying a lot of money for these so-called free services,

00:31:08.260 uh, that many on the left offer, and they're not quality. Uh, the profit margins on Medicare for

00:31:14.560 hospitals is incredibly thin. As I've already said, a lot of hospitals, you'd lose money accepting

00:31:19.980 Medicare patients. Uh, so imagine if the entire system was Medicare again, you got to cut staffers to

00:31:26.380 stay afloat, which creates a significant limitations on care that you can offer to patients. There's a

00:31:31.620 reason why in the UK and in Canada, which both have universal healthcare, uh, people have to wait

00:31:37.100 so long for major surgeries. And a lot of cases, there just aren't enough physicians to go around

00:31:42.240 because we've already established a hospitals can't afford to pay their physicians because

00:31:46.800 they're not getting enough money from government run programs. Uh, Frazier Institute found that Canada

00:31:53.320 has some of the worst wait times for emergency rooms, for basic sick care, for elective surgeries.

00:31:59.120 Uh, in fact, in 2016, Canadians waited an average of five months for medically necessary specialist

00:32:04.760 treatments. Uh, that's probably why 60,000 Canadians, uh, visit the United States and other countries for

00:32:12.640 medical care each year. Uh, in the UK, they've had 70 years, 70 years to figure out how to run a

00:32:20.280 government controlled healthcare system. Uh, and yet 80% of doctors in the UK say that they are

00:32:25.980 understaffed. Uh, that probably explains again, why over 50,000 non-urgent surgeries were canceled in

00:32:33.440 2018 when their systems in the UK, when their system was overwhelmed by flu season. So that is what I

00:32:41.540 would say. That's what Bernie Sanders is hoping will happen over here. Not that people, I don't think

00:32:46.260 that he wants people to die. I don't think he wants people to not be taken care of, but that's the

00:32:50.160 kind of system that he wants. And that's the inevitable consequences of the system that he

00:32:53.600 wants. Um, according to heritage by 2030, Americans already, as of right now face a serious and

00:33:00.600 potentially dangerous physician shortage ranging between 15,800 and 49,300 primary care doctors and

00:33:07.800 between 33,800 and 72,700 non-primary care doctors accelerated retirement, job-based burnout,

00:33:15.940 growing demoralization, fuel that shortfall. Uh, so Medicare for all is only going to make all of

00:33:21.660 that worse for the reasons that we just listed. We will have low quality care. Why? Because our

00:33:27.460 hospitals and doctor's offices will be understaffed. Why? Because Medicare pays less for services than

00:33:34.160 private health insurance does, which means the profit margin on these services decreases

00:33:38.600 significantly, uh, when Medicare is accepted and when profit goes down. Uh, and when profit goes down,

00:33:45.300 cuts are made to be able to keep a business afloat. And when you make those cuts in a medical center,

00:33:53.240 you've got fewer doctors, but you've got even more patients, uh, because you are required to serve

00:33:58.580 everyone because everyone is under the same insurance plan. So you've got overworked doctors

00:34:02.820 at understaffed centers who are just not able to offer prompt or quality care due to the burden

00:34:08.720 of work that they have. That is Medicare for all. So just understand that even though this sounds

00:34:14.480 great, even though this sounds like a compassionate proposal, it is not. It is an expensive, inefficient,

00:34:22.020 ineffective proposal offered by someone, Bernie Sanders, who has accomplished exactly nothing in

00:34:26.580 his political career, who has never once demonstrated even a basic understanding of economics,

00:34:31.260 who was, and probably still is a fan of the Soviet union and Venezuela. That is not an exaggeration.

00:34:37.600 By the way, he has expressed deep founded admiration for both of those tyrannical regimes,

00:34:42.780 who is a socialist who demonizes the 1%, who himself is a part of the 1% because he is worth over a million

00:34:49.200 dollars and even owns three homes. And he donates how much to charity did we learn from his tax returns?

00:34:55.580 I think 1% of his salary to charity. And so I'm just not really buying the whole thing that he's doing

00:35:00.480 everything he can for the least of these. But that's what socialists and those who advocate for

00:35:05.680 socialism do. They opt maybe with good intentions. Many of them, they opt for lazy forms of so-called

00:35:11.140 compassion, which is the government taking care of people. So they don't actually have to put any work

00:35:18.380 or effort into helping people themselves. As I always say, socialism helps people feel virtuous without

00:35:23.680 ever having to get off the couch. But the question is, so the question is, that's not the answer.

00:35:29.140 So what is the answer? Do conservatives have a better plan than Bernie Sanders?

00:35:35.680 There is something called the healthcare choice proposal that was presented by conservatives.

00:35:41.240 Patients would be able to choose the coverage arrangement that works best for them from a wide

00:35:46.100 array of options. This includes direct primary care, short-term limited duration plans,

00:35:50.880 catastrophic coverage, or what they call gold-plated Cadillac coverage. Proponents say that

00:35:56.560 this would make coverage far more affordable, lowering premiums by up to 32%, according to the

00:36:02.620 Center for Health and Economy. Moreover, it would ensure that everyone would access a quality private

00:36:08.540 coverage arrangement of their choice. So everyone who gets a government subsidy for healthcare would

00:36:15.140 now get to control, now have control over those dollars. They would be able to apply them

00:36:20.500 to a plan that they choose rather than one that the government chooses for them. It would also do

00:36:26.680 away with Obamacare subsidy structure in which insurance companies receive taxpayer subsidies dollar

00:36:31.920 for dollar as they raise prices. So with this, federal funds would be placed on a budget and sent to

00:36:37.180 states to help people access a quality private coverage arrangement of their choice, including the

00:36:42.580 poor and the sick. A Heritage Foundation study found that when states have been given even a little bit of

00:36:49.260 freedom from Obamacare's mandates, they have been able to lower projected 2019 premiums. So we'll see

00:36:55.860 about that. In one state, up to 43%, while still ensuring that the sick retain access to care. There are 90

00:37:03.840 leading conservatives that have already endorsed the healthcare choice proposal as the path forward to a

00:37:10.040 kind of new solution rather than Medicare for all. Now, Democrats will tell you, though, that Medicare

00:37:17.200 for all is extremely popular. So Republicans just need to stop talking and to just give in. AOC actually

00:37:22.500 tweeted this not too long ago that it's insanely popular. And they're somewhat right. There is a Kaiser

00:37:28.260 Family Foundation that found that 71% of Americans are for Medicare for all. When you tell them that this

00:37:35.360 will mean that healthcare will be guaranteed for everyone, they think, great, I want healthcare

00:37:39.140 guaranteed for everyone, 71% of Americans. But when you apply that, or when you explain that, this means

00:37:46.840 everyone will be on a single plan. And this would eliminate insurance companies. Those who approve

00:37:54.580 drop to 37%. When you explain this will lead to some delays in certain medical treatments, those who

00:38:02.500 approve drops to 26%. So basically, Medicare for all sounds great and is approved of by a lot of

00:38:08.880 people until they learn how it works and what the repercussions will be. That is the truth for almost

00:38:13.820 all democratic policies, by the way. They all sound great. They all sound compassionate and free and

00:38:20.700 righteous and good until you weigh the cost until you look at the effects and the consequences and the

00:38:26.300 limits on freedom and quality. But again, as we learned in our social justice episode, when it comes to

00:38:31.120 equality of outcomes, the left rarely weighs the cost on the other side. And when it comes to Medicare

00:38:37.220 for all, the cost is really high. So I hope that helped explain some of this for you. There's a lot

00:38:42.540 more that we could get into as always, but I hope that this gave you kind of a good understanding when

00:38:46.680 you're watching these presidential debates coming up about what the heck they're talking about and

00:38:51.260 what the truth is behind this grandiose plan of Medicare for all. The fact of the matter is, it's not

00:38:58.560 something that we want to be a part of. So hope that you guys have a great day and I will see you soon.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - July 17, 2019

Ep 138 ｜ Health Care

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