Speaker 1: Bill Cunningham, the Great American. Of course, the healthcare crisis
Speaker 1: in America has caused the shutdown of the government now opened,
Speaker 1: and watching one of the morning talk shows, King Jeffers
Speaker 1: is saying they have another bite at the apple in
Speaker 1: about ten weeks. January thirtieth is not that far away,
Speaker 1: and he says there might be another government shutdown happening,
Speaker 1: which is utterly ridiculous. Putting money into a failed system,
Speaker 1: a failed government program. Doubling down on stupid is often
Speaker 1: what Democrats and what many in Washington do. Some are
Speaker 1: fighting against it. Katie Talento is the executive director of
Speaker 1: the Alliance of Healthcare Sharing and first of all, Katie
Speaker 1: Talento tell us, can you give me, generally in the
Speaker 1: American people the status of health care in America today?
Speaker 1: Volumes have been written on that topic. But about out
Speaker 1: of ninety three percent of us get either our health
Speaker 1: insurance for Medicare, Medicaid from private plans, through employers or
Speaker 1: veterans or whatever. It might be about seven percent through
Speaker 1: the Obamacare exchanges, which have failed miserably. So, since you're
Speaker 1: in the industry, what is happening to us healthcare system
Speaker 1: in America in general? And the response to it by government.
Speaker 2: Well, it's not a good situation. Bill, Thanks for having me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think the affordability crisis is hitting everybody, and so
Speaker 2: you know, premiums are up double digits this year for everyone,
Speaker 2: even if federal employee has got a twelve percent rate hike,
Speaker 2: So you know, they get no love for having been
Speaker 2: put out of work for you know, twenty seven weeks,
Speaker 2: but they have to now pay more for their insurance too,
Speaker 2: so at least they're suffering with the rest of us.
Speaker 2: I do think that this is going to become a
Speaker 2: campaign issue unfortunately, and Republicans are usually in trouble when
Speaker 2: healthcare becomes a campaign issue. You know, I was a
Speaker 2: veteran of the White House when we were doing repeal
Speaker 2: and replace back in the day, and I can tell
Speaker 2: you it's going to take longer than five weeks for
Speaker 2: us to negotiate some sort of master plan here.
Speaker 3: So I think that if the Democrats want.
Speaker 2: To have another shutdown, they will do that at their
Speaker 2: political peril. But you know, that may not be the
Speaker 2: best thing for the American people at this point.
Speaker 4: What happened.
Speaker 1: I've done many topics the last few days weeks on
Speaker 1: the failure of Obamacare, in which is government subsidizing and
Speaker 1: billions of dollars that might be forty to fifty billion
Speaker 1: a year.
Speaker 4: Maybe you have the number.
Speaker 1: That Washington sends directly to insurance companies under a promise
Speaker 1: to hold down premiums and to the to the seven
Speaker 1: percent twenty three million people on Obamacare. Why did Obamacare fail?
Speaker 2: So the promise to hold down premiums has not really
Speaker 2: been tested. Obviously, the premiums have skyrocketed. They've more than
Speaker 2: tripled since twenty ten when.
Speaker 3: The bill was first enacted.
Speaker 2: However, affordability is sort of addressed by Obamacare because they
Speaker 2: just subsidize.
Speaker 3: Your overpriced premiums. And so the vast majority of people who.
Speaker 2: Are buying their plan on the Obamacare exchanges are getting
Speaker 2: premium subsidies, so their premiums are either free or they
Speaker 2: are largely subsidized. And that is truly the only way
Speaker 2: that you can keep anyone who is younger or healthier,
Speaker 2: or who is not sort of already sick from fleeing
Speaker 2: this market where it's so unaffordable.
Speaker 3: That they don't see the value of it.
Speaker 2: But they need to have all these younger, healthy people
Speaker 2: in the insurance pool or the insurers do, or else
Speaker 2: it'll go into what we call in the.
Speaker 3: Insurance business the death spiral.
Speaker 2: Where it's just sicker and older and sicker and older
Speaker 2: people every year, and then the premiums go up, and
Speaker 2: then a few more younger healthy people leave because they
Speaker 2: can't afford it anymore, and then it's older and sicker
Speaker 2: and so just get you get into the spiral, and
Speaker 2: that's the.
Speaker 3: Death of an insurance product.
Speaker 2: So they have to force people to stay in the pool,
Speaker 2: and that's why it's failing. It was never a good
Speaker 2: value for young healthy people. When you're requiring these policies
Speaker 2: to cover everything from abortion and trans surgeries to maternity
Speaker 2: writers for men and you know, preventive cap smears for men,
Speaker 2: you know like this is this is too much. It's
Speaker 2: too much insurance coverage for what most people need, and
Speaker 2: it's not enough insurance coverage for the people who do
Speaker 2: need it because the deductibles are so high they can't
Speaker 2: even afford to use their plan when they when they
Speaker 2: do need it. So it's an absolute failure. I do
Speaker 2: think that there are promising alternatives out there, like health
Speaker 2: care sharing ministries, like health savings accounts like Direct primary Care,
Speaker 2: which is sort of a Netflix subscription for unlimited primary care,
Speaker 2: and people are fleeing to these better alternatives that feel
Speaker 2: more human and feel more rational meeting their needs.
Speaker 1: Funding of failure is what Washington does, which is why
Speaker 1: Democrats want Obamacare to be funded. I spoke to a
Speaker 1: twenty eight year old who called in a couple a
Speaker 1: week or two ago, and this guy says, look, I
Speaker 1: was in Obamacare for like two years. I got out
Speaker 1: because I never I never used it. I never went
Speaker 1: to the er. I never I had a primary care physician,
Speaker 1: but I didn't feel a need to go. It was
Speaker 1: costing me seven hundred dollars a month, and I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: why am I doing it? I got rid of it. Plus,
Speaker 1: he said to me, look, isn't it true, he called
Speaker 1: me Uncle Bill. Isn't it true, Uncle Bill, that if
Speaker 1: I have something bad happens to me, I can go
Speaker 1: to the er anyway and get care at the er,
Speaker 1: and if I can't pay for it, I can't pay
Speaker 1: for it. So why have insurance if I get the
Speaker 1: product anyway for nothing? How do you respond to him?
Speaker 2: He's exactly right, He's making completely rational choices. You can
Speaker 2: go to the er and they are required to treat
Speaker 2: you regardless of your coverage. Now, you might end up
Speaker 2: with a really horrific building said to you, you might end
Speaker 2: up in collections over it, but at least you will
Speaker 2: be treated in that moment if you're having a life
Speaker 2: threatening issue. I totally sympathize with your caller because he's
Speaker 2: the exact reason why Obamacare is failing. Young healthy people
Speaker 2: they just seed no value in this product, so why
Speaker 2: would they stay? And so you're left with only healthy, unhealthy,
Speaker 2: expensive people driving up premium so that it happens even
Speaker 2: worse next year. That's why this whole project has failed,
Speaker 2: and that's why we've got to seek alternatives. I was
Speaker 2: so encouraged by President Trump tweeting or rather truthing out
Speaker 2: in the past couple of weeks about let's just stop
Speaker 2: putting money in insurers' pocket and let's actually put it
Speaker 2: in health savings accounts for people so they can go
Speaker 2: buy what they want.
Speaker 1: Great idea, but a Keem Jeffries and the Democrats don't
Speaker 1: want any part of that because it puts the person
Speaker 1: in charge, not big time health insurers who pay them
Speaker 1: huge amounts of money.
Speaker 4: And campaign.
Speaker 1: I think the average America done understand that about how
Speaker 1: much money every year goes from the US Treasury to
Speaker 1: big time health insurers in order to knock down the
Speaker 1: premiums of individuals who may not use the product at all?
Speaker 1: And how much money is the taxpayer funding healthcare insurance companies.
Speaker 4: How much money we're talking about about, it's.
Speaker 3: About a trillion dollars. I published with it with a trillion.
Speaker 2: With a John Houfkin's researchers a few years ago, we
Speaker 2: estimated that almost half forty seven percent. But the entire
Speaker 2: United States budget goes towards some form of health care.
Speaker 1: Well, if you're United healthcare, are you in the business
Speaker 1: having taken all this money from the government under Obamacare,
Speaker 1: are you in the business and making sure that you're
Speaker 1: ensured have great healthcare at low cost?
Speaker 4: Or are you in the business of making money?
Speaker 2: Well, that's exactly right. You know, these giant companies we
Speaker 2: call them the Bukahs, Blue Cross, United Signa at nine, Humana, Buca,
Speaker 2: and these these giant companies, nobody had ever heard of
Speaker 2: some of them, you know, years ago, and now they're on.
Speaker 3: The Fortune fifty list.
Speaker 2: Their stockholders are loving it. Living it up, and you know,
Speaker 2: their CEOs are living off they're billionaires. And you know, meanwhile,
Speaker 2: United Healthcare is denying a third of every claim that
Speaker 2: comes to them. And most people think of their insurer
Speaker 2: like the cable compan They hate them. And so this
Speaker 2: is a product that nobody really wants to pay for
Speaker 2: because they don't see the value in it, and when
Speaker 2: they really need it, when they really need it.
Speaker 3: It's an absolute bureaucratic night there to use.
Speaker 1: Aren't the insurance companies because they are a for profit
Speaker 1: business in the business of denying claims and having high deductibilities.
Speaker 1: And that's true because I listened to a Keem Jeffries.
Speaker 1: If Republicans don't agree to this, you want people to
Speaker 1: be sick and die in hospitals. You don't want people
Speaker 1: to get medical care. In reality, the Democrats get millions
Speaker 1: of dollars in campaign donations from insurance companies, and aren't
Speaker 1: they in the business of making money and not in
Speaker 1: the business of providing healthcare?
Speaker 2: Well, the secret of the dirty little secret of healthcare
Speaker 2: is that the insurers are interested in high prices from hospitals,
Speaker 2: and hospitals are interested in lots of sick people.
Speaker 3: So when you get paid.
Speaker 2: When people are sick and high price stuff is done
Speaker 2: to them, you're going to get more sickness and higher
Speaker 2: price stuff. And that's what we're seeing over and over again.
Speaker 1: You also say in this column, uh, you believe that
Speaker 1: the recent US government shutdown that ended after forty three
Speaker 1: days result of from protecting lucrative political donations from big
Speaker 1: healthcare insurance. And the media never asked a King Jeffries
Speaker 1: or Democrats the question, how come we're funding the BUCA,
Speaker 1: the large Blue Cross Blue Shield and United Healthcare and SIGNA.
Speaker 1: We're funding them and they're in the business of screwing
Speaker 1: the policyholders.
Speaker 4: Why isn't that brought up by the media.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, to be fair to these politicians.
Speaker 2: And let me tell you, the healthcare swamp funds all
Speaker 2: parties and every single one of them. You know, the
Speaker 2: farm industry alone has four or five lobbyists for every
Speaker 2: member of Congress. So nobody is innocent here in DC.
Speaker 2: But I will tell you that you know, these people,
Speaker 2: they are in the business of making money and profiting
Speaker 2: off of our sickness. But the American people are also
Speaker 2: apol polutely committed to having insurance at any cost. I mean,
Speaker 2: we have seen that. Unfortunately, if you try to take
Speaker 2: I mean the battlescars from the repeal and replaced effort
Speaker 2: in twenty seventeen, if you try to take a single
Speaker 2: dollar away from insurance subsidies for even a small percentage
Speaker 2: of of the American people, you will lose the next election.
Speaker 2: So I think the Republicans take this issue on at
Speaker 2: their peril. The Democrats take this issue on at their peril.
Speaker 2: It's very perils. It's going to make everybody a little
Speaker 2: bit scared. So it'll be very interesting to see what
Speaker 2: happens over the next few weeks.
Speaker 1: You seem to say, almost Katie Talento of the Alliance
Speaker 1: for Health Care Sharing, it's almost a soluble problem. The
Speaker 1: Democrats are incentivized to keep the issue front and center.
Speaker 1: By the way, Obamacare had little or nothing to do
Speaker 1: with the shutdown, because the shutdown was shutting down the
Speaker 1: whole government. So the Democrats said, look, we're not going
Speaker 1: to pay the soldiers, We're going to make TSC agents
Speaker 1: sleep in their cars. We're going to shut down snap,
Speaker 1: We're going to shut down the entire government on this
Speaker 1: unrelated issue of giving money to insurance companies out of
Speaker 1: the public treasury. And I think the American people bought
Speaker 1: it because politically, most of the polls now indicate this
Speaker 1: weekend that Republicans are blamed for the shutdown and not Democrats.
Speaker 1: So when Republicans voted to open the government and Democrats
Speaker 1: voted to close the government, the American people believe that
Speaker 1: the Republicans closed the government and the Democrats wanted to
Speaker 1: open the government, when in reality, the Republicans wanted to
Speaker 1: open the government and the Democrats wanted to close the government.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Democratically, the Democratic Party.
Speaker 4: Won, no.
Speaker 2: I mean, they're in a civil war right now over.
Speaker 2: You know, they're eight traders who actually opened the government.
Speaker 2: But those eight traders, the Democrats who voted with the
Speaker 2: Republicans to reopen the government, they're the ones in the
Speaker 2: swing states, so they kind of know that this is
Speaker 2: not actually a good plan to just shut down not
Speaker 2: do their jobs for months on end.
Speaker 3: So I think Democrats that actually are in.
Speaker 2: Any kind of political peril, we're thanking these eight behind
Speaker 2: the back, behind the scenes all right now.
Speaker 1: And lastly, for those of us who receive healthcare from
Speaker 1: our employer, I work for a large company, and it
Speaker 1: takes a degree in Chinese calculus to figure out all
Speaker 1: the plans and the deductibilities.
Speaker 4: And you want this rider? Do you want that rider?
Speaker 4: Do you want prescriptive care? Do you want not want it?
Speaker 1: Do you want maternity care? I don't need that very much.
Speaker 1: Do I need transgender care? Which I don't think? God
Speaker 1: hope I never need that. And so I leave it
Speaker 1: to my wife to decide what do we do. And
Speaker 1: according to polling, the majority of employee or employee based
Speaker 1: plans are popular with employees, which is about one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty some million people. But still the cost keeps
Speaker 1: going up. If you're on Medicare Medicaid generally you pay
Speaker 1: little or nothing anyway. You don't have a dog in
Speaker 1: the fight. So can you tell me get out your
Speaker 1: crystal ball, Katie Talento? How does this issue resolve itself
Speaker 1: without a complete collapse of our medical system?
Speaker 4: How do we resolve it?
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know that we're going to resolve that. Again,
Speaker 3: I'm very nervous.
Speaker 2: I'm very nervous that we're going to end up with
Speaker 2: single payer at some point because it is not a
Speaker 2: sustainable trajectory. And you're exactly right that those who are
Speaker 2: bearing the largest cost of this are wage earners at
Speaker 2: big employers who are actually paying for most healthcare in
Speaker 2: this country.
Speaker 3: You're right.
Speaker 2: Half those country is insured on the job. And those companies,
Speaker 2: you know, they have some other core mission that's not
Speaker 2: running a health plan, but they're now in the health
Speaker 2: insurance business, and that business is absolutely spiraling. And so
Speaker 2: it's a huge crisis for every company. And so if
Speaker 2: we don't get this under control, I fear very much
Speaker 2: it will be the business community that pressures Congress to
Speaker 2: have a complete government takeover of healthcare.
Speaker 1: Lastly, explain single payer. I have a pretty good grasp
Speaker 1: of what it is that everyone under medicare. Explain to
Speaker 1: the average Americans what is single payer, how would it work?
Speaker 4: And why is it a bad idea?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, single payer is what every other country in
Speaker 2: the world, literally every other country in the world, has
Speaker 2: decided to do about healthcare, where the government actually pays
Speaker 2: for healthcare, and they do it in different ways. In
Speaker 2: some countries like Israel and Germany, they basically do it
Speaker 2: like an Obamacare on steroids, where it's all filter through
Speaker 2: insurance companies which are.
Speaker 3: Just agents of the state.
Speaker 2: But at least you pick an insurance plan like Medicare
Speaker 2: advantage for instance. But other countries like the UK or
Speaker 2: like Canada, you know, they just have the government. You
Speaker 2: just walk into the government clinic and the government hospital.
Speaker 3: And there are no insurance companies.
Speaker 2: And the reason why this is a problem, and I
Speaker 2: mean again like there are trade offs. Right for some
Speaker 2: services like primary care, it's a much better experience and
Speaker 2: it's much more sane in these countries where you have
Speaker 2: easy and free and unlimited access to primary care and
Speaker 2: preventive care. But what happens in these situations is when
Speaker 2: it comes times that you need specialty care, there is
Speaker 2: rationing and long lines, and you don't get the best technology,
Speaker 2: and you don't get the timely treatment, and cancer patients
Speaker 2: are waiting, and people with you know who need knee
Speaker 2: replacements are waiting for years. There are people who die
Speaker 2: on the wait list for their knee replacement. So it's
Speaker 2: just it's not a good situation, and America has chosen.
Speaker 3: A different path. I hope that we figure a way
Speaker 3: out of this.
Speaker 2: There are some innovative and creative ideas out there, like
Speaker 2: health care sharing ministries, like health savings accounts for everyone
Speaker 2: I think that might help as we As you know,
Speaker 2: President Trump actually implemented when I was there, a Christ
Speaker 2: transparency initiative, forcing hospitals and ensures to post their secret
Speaker 2: prices publicly in an effort to try to create a
Speaker 2: health care market. What we have right now is either
Speaker 2: free nor market in healthcare. So to the extent that
Speaker 2: we can force an actual Christ competition in health care,
Speaker 2: we might just be able to pull this thing off.
Speaker 2: But it's going to take a miracle from God.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, Katie Talento, executive director of Alliance of health Care Sharing,
Speaker 1: you've laid it out, and I fear this issue is
Speaker 1: too easy to demagogue, which means you're I had it
Speaker 1: toured within ten years of Medicare for All system in
Speaker 1: which you will ration healthcare, and it's gonna be similar
Speaker 1: to Canada. And most of my Canadian friends get their
Speaker 1: medical services of any exceptional quality or quantity from the
Speaker 1: United States. They don't stick in Canada because to get
Speaker 1: a knee replacement or they have cancer treatment is thinking
Speaker 1: months you'll die on the list before it's replaced. And
Speaker 1: if someone needs a knee replacement in America, you can
Speaker 1: get it a week from Tuesday. Katie Talento, you're a
Speaker 1: great American. Laid out the problems once again. Thank you
Speaker 1: for coming on the Bill Cunningham Show. And Katie, you're
Speaker 1: a great American. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Thank you Bill, you too, God bless you.
Speaker 4: Let's continue with more. There you go.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to say, but the politicians, especially Democrats,
Speaker 1: are not incentivized to solve the problem because politically, in
Speaker 1: their minds, they benefit from low information voters. Bill Cunningham
Speaker 1: News Radio one hundreds that w you all.
Speaker 3: Don me