Point of View October 21, 2024 – Hour 1 : Recent Healthcare News

[00:00:04] [SPEAKER_03]: Across America, Live, this is Point of View. And now, Dr. Merrill Matthews.

[00:00:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And welcome to Point of View. I'm Merrill Matthews, sitting in for Kirby Anderson today.

[00:00:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And we have a jam-packed show for you today, looking at a number of issues, public policy issues that will affect, that could affect how you vote.

[00:00:35] [SPEAKER_00]: So we want to make sure that you are informed and understand some of these issues as you get ready to go into the polling booth and cast your ballot.

[00:00:43] [SPEAKER_00]: We'll be looking today at Medicare and at health insurance issues from two experts in those.

[00:00:50] [SPEAKER_00]: We'll also turn to Dr. David Henderson to look. He's going to do, he's an economist, one of the country's top economists.

[00:00:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And he'll be looking, comparing some of the economic issues being offered by Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

[00:01:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And then we'll end the show later today with John Fund, long time guest on Point of View, talking about election integrity.

[00:01:12] [SPEAKER_00]: So we'll start out now by turning to Joel White. He is the founder and president of Horizon Government Affairs.

[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_00]: That's a health care consultancy firm in Washington. And they represent several dozen clients.

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Plus, they run four coalitions comprised of 200 organizations dedicated to reforms that improve our health care system.

[00:01:34] [SPEAKER_00]: He spent 12 years on Capitol Hill, including as staff director of the House Ways and Means Committee Health Subcommittee.

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's where I met Joel probably 20 years ago. Joel, thank you for joining us.

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_04]: Meryl, thanks for having me on. It doesn't feel like 20 years.

[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_00]: I know what you mean.

[00:01:54] [SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to talk a little bit about Medicare.

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_00]: You had a piece in the Daily Signal just recently, along with Ed Hazelmeyer.

[00:02:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And you're looking at Medicare Part D, the prescription drug plan.

[00:02:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Now, a lot of people are in Medicare Advantage and many people are in Part D.

[00:02:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Tell us a little bit about what Part D is.

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. So the top line here to keep in mind is that, unfortunately, prescription drug and health costs are going up.

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_04]: They're not going down.

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_04]: Medicare Part D is a program where seniors purchase a health plan, an insurance plan, that provide coverage for their drug costs.

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_04]: And that involves paying a deductible and then getting coverage.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_04]: And now in 2024, not paying anything after the senior incurs about $3,100 in costs, which is a wildly popular program.

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_04]: Like premiums have been stable or going down.

[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_00]: It's actually been one of the most effective programs.

[00:03:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Washington often passes bad programs, but this has worked pretty well.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_04]: When we were designing this program way back when I was congressional staff, Medicare didn't cover drugs.

[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_04]: And drugs were becoming increasingly an important part to managing disease and keeping people healthy and out of the hospital.

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_04]: And so we designed this program to be a market-based, incentive-driven program where plans compete for business, the senior who's signing up for the plan.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_04]: And so what we've seen is they've really competed on premium.

[00:03:34] [SPEAKER_04]: And keeping those premiums low, keeping coverage robust, keeping out-of-pocket costs low was really important to get more customers to buy their plans.

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_04]: And it's beloved.

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_04]: It's got 90% approval rating.

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_04]: And I challenge you to find another federal health care program where costs are actually going down over time, not up.

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_04]: This is one of the true bright spots on the federal health care landscape.

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_00]: So why are people seeing Part D premium increases, I think, especially as we go into the next year?

[00:04:08] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, it's all due to the law that was passed in 2022.

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_04]: It's called the Inflation Reduction Act.

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_04]: I think that's actually a misnamed law.

[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_04]: That law is driving up costs in a way we've never seen before.

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_04]: Premiums are now increasing by double digits.

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_04]: And Ed and I outlined this in the piece that you referenced on the Daily Signal that, you know, before President Biden, premiums for the previous four years under President Trump had actually decreased in real dollar terms by 12%.

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_04]: Since President Biden was elected and since the enactment of the law, premiums have gone up by 57%.

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_04]: So just like everything else in the economy, eggs, rent, gas, the Medicare, drug costs, drug premiums are going up, not down.

[00:05:01] [SPEAKER_04]: And so 57% is a big hit on someone with a fixed income.

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_04]: The reason the law is driving those premium increases, you may have heard Vice President Harris talk about the $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket costs.

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, that's part of the law, and that's a good thing.

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_04]: But they wrote the law in a way that phased in increased risk on insurance companies kind of almost immediately.

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_04]: And what the insurance companies are doing is they're taking that risk and they're charging a higher premium for that benefit.

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_04]: It's just like if you buy a gold-plated health plan, you're going to pay a higher premium.

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_04]: And that's what we're seeing across all purchasers in the market.

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_04]: So the average increase in premiums, 57%.

[00:05:48] [SPEAKER_04]: In some states, it's 122%, like California, or 116% in New York, or 104% in Nevada.

[00:05:56] [SPEAKER_04]: So these are big hits in a program where your premiums have been pretty stable and low for a very long time.

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Joe, this is a little counterintuitive, right?

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, politicians, if there's a group you don't want to tick off before an election, it's seniors.

[00:06:11] [SPEAKER_00]: And yet that's exactly what this does.

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_04]: It's exactly what this does.

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_04]: And it's not just premiums.

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_04]: It's your deductible, right?

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_04]: Like so you mentioned Medicare Advantage, a lot of people in Medicare Advantage.

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_04]: The average deductible in Medicare Advantage is doubling going into next year.

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_04]: It's going to be $330 on average.

[00:06:30] [SPEAKER_04]: So seniors and the disabled are shopping for their 2025 plans right now.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_04]: This information just came out on October 15th.

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_04]: They're online shopping for these plans.

[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_04]: That's a big hit going into a November 5th election.

[00:06:49] [SPEAKER_04]: You know, if you're going to talk, you know, 57% premium increase, they're going to ask,

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_04]: how did this happen?

[00:06:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Who was responsible for it?

[00:06:56] [SPEAKER_04]: And the answer is the authors of the law.

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_04]: And the authors of the law were all Democrats.

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_04]: So politically, this is a really bad timing for the authors of the law, the Biden-Harris administration, etc.

[00:07:08] [SPEAKER_04]: So it will have, in our opinion, an impact on the election because you've got a lot of explaining to do here.

[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_04]: You told me my drug costs were going to go down.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_04]: Instead, they're going up.

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_00]: We've got a little bit more than a minute before we have to take a break.

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_00]: But is the media covering this?

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Because I don't see a lot in the media about it.

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Yours is about the only piece I've seen.

[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_04]: There's been some stories, I think, now that we have information on what 2025 looks like and the fact that it's, like, so – such a brutal increase in some of these states.

[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_04]: And it's – almost every state has a premium increase.

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_04]: It's starting to pick up.

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_04]: But what we're hearing from is not necessarily the media.

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_04]: What we're watching is the message board, AARP message boards and the forums where seniors are getting on and saying, wait a minute.

[00:08:01] [SPEAKER_04]: I thought my drug costs were going to go down.

[00:08:03] [SPEAKER_04]: I got a 600 percent premium increase and my drug is no longer covered.

[00:08:07] [SPEAKER_04]: What's going on here?

[00:08:09] [SPEAKER_04]: So the vast majority of consumers, the senior citizens and the disabled who are buying these plans, are scratching their heads going, what the heck happened here?

[00:08:19] [SPEAKER_04]: And so there's going to be a reckoning.

[00:08:21] [SPEAKER_04]: We think first it will be at the ballot box on November 5th.

[00:08:25] [SPEAKER_04]: And then the next Congress is going to have to take this issue head on and say, we've got to fix this market because this program used to work really well.

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_04]: So we do want to lower out-of-pocket costs, but we can't have these premium increases with it.

[00:08:39] [SPEAKER_00]: We'll be back continuing our discussion on Medicare Part D in just a minute, so stay with us.

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_03]: This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_01]: What do people in the intelligence community believe are the greatest threats to America?

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_01]: I had an opportunity to watch one presentation that listed five threats.

[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_01]: The first is the possibility of an EMP attack in which a nuclear weapon is detonated at high altitude over this country.

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_01]: The Congressional EMP Commission has stated that it could bring down the entire power grid.

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_01]: The second threat could have a similar impact.

[00:09:25] [SPEAKER_01]: This is the concern that sleeper agents from foreign countries in this country get activated and take down this country's power grid or conduct terrorist actions.

[00:09:34] [SPEAKER_01]: A third concern is the possibility of massive supply chain disruptions which surface because of looters or rioters who target food production facilities and supply chains.

[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_01]: We've seen many suspicious fires at food production plants.

[00:09:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And this overlaps with a fourth concern that the country breaks out into a civil war with certain states deciding to secede and close their borders.

[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_01]: A fifth concern results from China invading Taiwan.

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Some fear that this could trigger World War III if the U.S. decides to respond.

[00:10:05] [SPEAKER_01]: China has the largest navy in the world and more warships than the U.S.

[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I listed these in descending order of disruption.

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_01]: The first two threats would have a devastating impact on the country.

[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Supply chain disruption could be harsh in some areas, perhaps less in others.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And we might hope that the likelihood of a national civil war or the onset of World War III would be less likely but very devastating if it occurred.

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_01]: These threats are a reminder that we need to have serious and capable people in office.

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_01]: It's also a reminder that each of us need to also prepare for scenarios like this we hope and pray never occur.

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Kirby Anderson and that's my point of view.

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_03]: For a free booklet on a biblical view of Israel, go to viewpoints.info.com

[00:10:58] [SPEAKER_03]: You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:11:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And welcome back to Point of View.

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Joining me by phone is healthcare expert Joel White.

[00:11:10] [SPEAKER_00]: He is founder and president of Horizon Government Affairs, and he works on health policy issues there, especially in Washington, but also at the state level.

[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And, Joel, going back 30 years, Newt Gingrich wanted to slow the rate of growth of Medicare, and he came out with a plan.

[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_00]: This was going to be sort of the initial phase of what became Medicare Advantage.

[00:11:33] [SPEAKER_00]: We called it Medicare Plus Choice.

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_00]: But he wanted to slow the rate of growth, and he was talking about this.

[00:11:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And there was concern.

[00:11:40] [SPEAKER_00]: We said that when you go out and you start talking about slowing the rate of growth, the media will say you're cutting Medicare.

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And he said, no, no, we'll go on television and we'll explain.

[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_00]: We're not cutting anything.

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_00]: We're just slowing the rate of growth.

[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And the media came out, and Democrats said, you're cutting Medicare.

[00:11:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And he just got hammered by this notion that they were cutting Medicare.

[00:11:59] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't see the media criticizing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for cutting Medicare the same way they did Newt Gingrich as he made a proposal.

[00:12:12] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think that may be a function of the media.

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_04]: It's also a bit of a function of what you consider a cut.

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_04]: But, like, to be clear, there's been a long history of Congress raiding Medicare to pay for other stuff.

[00:12:29] [SPEAKER_04]: And in this law that we're talking about, this 2022 misnamed Inflation Reduction Act, they took $300 billion, $300 billion with a B, dollars out of Medicare,

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_04]: and they spent it on green energy and enhanced Obamacare subsidies for wealthier individuals.

[00:12:49] [SPEAKER_04]: So if that money had stayed in Medicare, they could have done something about this premium problem.

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_04]: They could have made sure deductibles weren't doubling.

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_04]: They could have made sure that seniors still had access to a robust list of drugs.

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_04]: They didn't do that.

[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_04]: They took that money out of Medicare and they spent it on other stuff.

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_04]: So I don't know why the media doesn't pick up on this, that there were cuts to Medicare.

[00:13:12] [SPEAKER_04]: There were also regulatory cuts from the Biden administration where they lowered funding for Medicare Advantage.

[00:13:19] [SPEAKER_04]: Medicare Advantage is going to be paid $0.97 on the dollar, which means they're reducing the plans that are available to seniors

[00:13:26] [SPEAKER_04]: and they're cutting back on benefits, targeting diabetes, drugs for management, and other things.

[00:13:31] [SPEAKER_04]: So it's really shocking to me that we're not talking more about this.

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_04]: We should be.

[00:13:37] [SPEAKER_00]: I want to touch on that point because I've seen several stories addressing the issue that some of the major Medicare Advantage plans,

[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_00]: and I think roughly half of seniors now are in a Medicare Advantage plan.

[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_00]: That's a Medicare plan that uses private sector.

[00:13:54] [SPEAKER_00]: But I'm seeing that Humana, UnitedHealth, and some of the others are going to be dropping their plans, cutting back on that,

[00:14:00] [SPEAKER_00]: and that some several million seniors may end up losing their Medicare Advantage coverage.

[00:14:06] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, in total across Part D and Medicare Advantage, about 3 million seniors are going to lose their plan this year heading into next year.

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_04]: So you really need to shop.

[00:14:17] [SPEAKER_04]: Go to Medicare.gov or go to your insurance agent or broker and ask them what to do because that plan won't be in that service area anymore.

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_04]: They're pulling out.

[00:14:26] [SPEAKER_04]: 3 million is a lot of people.

[00:14:28] [SPEAKER_00]: 3 million is a lot.

[00:14:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And the irony here is Kamala Harris is spinning this as we are saving money from Medicare.

[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_00]: We're not cutting anything.

[00:14:36] [SPEAKER_00]: We're saving money because we're being so much more efficient in controlling prices.

[00:14:42] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and I think what's become evident about these price controls in Medicare is they're really damaging innovation and new product development.

[00:14:55] [SPEAKER_04]: We've seen about 26 different research programs for different diseases on cancer, rare disease, diabetes get pulled.

[00:15:05] [SPEAKER_04]: That's not what we want.

[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_04]: We want a robust, innovative market where new products are coming out.

[00:15:10] [SPEAKER_04]: What we want is lower prices.

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_04]: There's ways to do that without harming the innovation.

[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_04]: And there's ways to reform this market to bring down out-of-pocket costs without completely crushing seniors with high premiums.

[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_04]: What's happening right now is a very unstable market.

[00:15:27] [SPEAKER_04]: It is a very, very unstable market.

[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_04]: And I think we're going to continue to see in 2025 clamping down, scaling back, higher costs, less choices.

[00:15:38] [SPEAKER_00]: If I'm a senior on Medicare, am I going to lose access to some of my drugs, do you think?

[00:15:46] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_04]: Actually, unfortunately, there's been surveys of the major plans covering about 300 million lives across the country.

[00:15:57] [SPEAKER_04]: And 96% of those plans are increasing management of these products.

[00:16:04] [SPEAKER_04]: And about 65% are planning to really aggressively target diabetes drugs.

[00:16:10] [SPEAKER_04]: But 83% of plans are planning to exclude more products from the drug list.

[00:16:15] [SPEAKER_04]: That means that your diabetes or cardiovascular or cancer drug or, you know, other drug that you relied on may no longer be on the list that your plan covers.

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_04]: And so you have to shop for a plan where that drug is covered.

[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_04]: And, unfortunately, what we're seeing this year as people are shopping is that to get that drug that used to be covered, you've got to pay a higher premium.

[00:16:39] [SPEAKER_04]: So this is, again, not a great situation.

[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_00]: So what can seniors do?

[00:16:48] [SPEAKER_04]: Shop, shop, shop.

[00:16:49] [SPEAKER_04]: We're not going to change the law between now and, you know, January 1st.

[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_04]: But right now, you go to Medicare.gov, you can enter in your drugs, you can enter in your zip code, and it'll show you all the plans that are available in your area.

[00:17:05] [SPEAKER_04]: You're just going to have to shop.

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_04]: The other thing is go talk to your independent insurance agent.

[00:17:10] [SPEAKER_04]: So you can't really do much about the way the market looks heading into next year, but shop and see what your options are.

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_04]: The second thing to do is vote.

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_04]: Go to the ballot box and vote and hold people accountable for really radically rewriting this program and making it much more expensive with fewer choices.

[00:17:30] [SPEAKER_04]: And then talk to your member of Congress at their town hall forums in district and get them to change this law heading into 2025.

[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_04]: We have an opportunity to change the law.

[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_04]: We need to change this law to make it the beloved program that it's been.

[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_00]: So that leads us to the question, what does Congress need to do in order to change the law?

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_00]: If you were advising Congress now and they said, we want to make some changes, what would you do?

[00:17:56] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:17:56] [SPEAKER_04]: I think the first thing we need to do is stabilize the market, get the plans back in the market.

[00:18:01] [SPEAKER_04]: And that means we shifted a lot of risk on the plans in a very short amount of time.

[00:18:06] [SPEAKER_04]: We need to take some of that risk back and say, instead of 60% risk on these very high-cost products, maybe you should just have 20% risk.

[00:18:16] [SPEAKER_04]: And we'll phase that in over time.

[00:18:18] [SPEAKER_04]: The second thing we need to do is we need to have a better way to lower drug costs than just putting price controls on them.

[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_04]: So we need to speed up approvals.

[00:18:28] [SPEAKER_04]: We need to get the FDA to approve more products and CMS to cover, to create market competition to drive those drug costs down, get some of those regulatory burdens out of the way.

[00:18:38] [SPEAKER_04]: And the third thing I think we need to take a look at is making sure that people who are falling into the cracks, right,

[00:18:46] [SPEAKER_04]: the people who are experiencing 100% premium increase are protected from those increases.

[00:18:52] [SPEAKER_04]: And so what that might mean is putting more help up front versus just saying, well, we're going to cap all the costs after $2,000 and maybe cap them after $3,000

[00:19:04] [SPEAKER_04]: and make sure that most people who have drug costs below that get more help.

[00:19:10] [SPEAKER_00]: You mentioned price controls, and we haven't talked about that much, but the government is putting price controls on certain drugs in Medicare.

[00:19:18] [SPEAKER_00]: At least it's getting ready to do that.

[00:19:23] [SPEAKER_04]: It is.

[00:19:24] [SPEAKER_04]: Those will come into play in 2026 on 10 of what Medicare spends the most money on.

[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_04]: And basically what we said was the bureaucrats and politicians get to decide what the price is.

[00:19:39] [SPEAKER_04]: Before that, the plans that seniors signed up for negotiated the price.

[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_04]: And if they did a good job, they had a low premium.

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_04]: A lot of seniors signed up for those plans.

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_04]: Instead, we kicked it to the government.

[00:19:51] [SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, anytime I want a more efficient, effective process, my first thought is not let's kick it to the government.

[00:19:58] [SPEAKER_04]: So they've set these prices, and those prices go into effect in 2026.

[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_04]: They're roughly on par with what the private sector was getting, but they can be cranked down.

[00:20:10] [SPEAKER_04]: And I think what we're going to see is more political decisions being made about how to, quote, unquote, get pharma.

[00:20:18] [SPEAKER_04]: The challenge is it seems to be we're getting seniors.

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_04]: We're hitting seniors with these high costs.

[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_04]: But what's also true is where we're seeing investments in the market is less in the pill space and more in other things like green energy and things like that.

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_04]: We're seeing capital leave the market.

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_04]: We're seeing research projects for cancer, cardiovascular disease, rare diseases get pulled and shelved, and the companies are just not working on those treatments anymore.

[00:20:51] [SPEAKER_04]: That's not a good outcome.

[00:20:54] [SPEAKER_00]: I agree with you with that.

[00:20:56] [SPEAKER_00]: My guest has been Joel White.

[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_00]: He is the founder and president of Horizon Government Services, and they work on health care issues.

[00:21:05] [SPEAKER_00]: We have more information about Joel, if you'd like that, or you can go to pointofview.net and find a link to what he does there.

[00:21:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And you can also find a link to that Daily Signal article, and I would encourage you to do that because it has a lot of information there about what's happening.

[00:21:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes these numbers get confusing when you're listening to them, but he's got it there for you.

[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Joel, for joining us.

[00:21:31] [SPEAKER_03]: Who can you trust?

[00:21:34] [SPEAKER_03]: Years ago, many of us could probably have provided a fairly long list.

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_03]: But today, well, today it seems we almost can't trust anyone.

[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_03]: Educators don't even know what a woman is anymore.

[00:21:48] [SPEAKER_03]: Many so-called public servants have shown all they care about is themselves.

[00:21:52] [SPEAKER_03]: The FBI has been accused of bias, law-breaking, betrayal, and journalism.

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_03]: It's largely corrupt, with no Clark Kent standing up for truth, justice, and the American way.

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[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_03]: The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station.

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_03]: And now, here again, Dr. Merrill Matthews.

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_00]: And we're back on Point of View.

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_00]: We just finished our discussion with Joel White.

[00:23:17] [SPEAKER_00]: He is president of Horizon Government Affairs.

[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And now, we're going to continue our discussion about health insurance with J.P. Weiske, who is the vice president of state affairs for Horizon Government Affairs.

[00:23:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And he was, for several years, the deputy commissioner of health insurance in the state of Wisconsin.

[00:23:37] [SPEAKER_00]: J.P., thank you for joining me.

[00:23:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, thanks for having me, Merrill.

[00:23:40] [SPEAKER_00]: I used to call J.P. some years ago when it would get 20 below in January in Wisconsin and ask him how things are going up there.

[00:23:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Usually in the winter when Texas had great weather.

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, and he would say, it builds character.

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_02]: That's right.

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_00]: So, thank you for joining us.

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, J.P., health insurance has become part of the discussion in the election.

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And I keep hearing Vice President Kamala Harris talk about some needed reforms in the health care system.

[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_00]: But the health insurance system is Obamacare, which Democrats voted for completely.

[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_00]: There was no Republican vote for that.

[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And they promised us lots of things about Obamacare, saying, well, once we do this, your premiums are going to go down.

[00:24:30] [SPEAKER_00]: You'll have lots of choices.

[00:24:32] [SPEAKER_00]: There have been a lot of problems with Obamacare.

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's right.

[00:24:37] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, a number of, you know, the base design of Obamacare has always been problematic.

[00:24:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And the reason it, you know, insofar as it works is the heavy subsidies that are attaching.

[00:24:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And without those subsidies, you'd see that you've seen the prices in the market just rise dramatically, even right after Obamacare.

[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think we may have lost him for a second.

[00:25:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, we'll see if we can get JP back on because it seems we may have lost him for a second.

[00:25:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[00:25:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's what he's talking about is that when the subsidies in Obamacare are can be a real problem.

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_00]: JP, are you back with us?

[00:25:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Yep, I am.

[00:25:22] [SPEAKER_00]: The glitches that come with live radio and sometimes cell phones.

[00:25:27] Yeah.

[00:25:28] [SPEAKER_00]: So you were talking about the subsidies in Obamacare and the problems they create.

[00:25:32] [SPEAKER_02]: That's right.

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And the problem is that the subsidies sort of distort the market, you know, artificially.

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And so consumers are not really paying real dollars in a lot of cases for their plans.

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And that creates, you know, that creates a problem and an interest in certain plans versus others.

[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And what's been ignored, I think, Merrill, is the employer market where most people get their coverage, both the small employer market, which is, you know, still kind of in Obamacare, has all the Obamacare rules, but without the subsidies.

[00:26:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And the large employer market, which is not subsidized and still subject to some penalties if they're not providing coverage.

[00:26:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And so those two markets are sort of the key.

[00:26:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And if those start going away and we're seeing significant erosion over the last five, ten years, you know, accelerated by Obamacare, that creates a really big problem in the insurance market, the health insurance market.

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_00]: So the subsidies are kind of a two-edged sword, aren't they?

[00:26:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Because if I'm low income and I'm getting the – well, you don't have to be low income.

[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_00]: You can be fairly middle or even upper income and still get subsidies.

[00:26:42] [SPEAKER_00]: If I get these subsidies, that's helpful because it helps me cover the cost of health insurance.

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, it insulates me from the cost.

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I have an incentive to try to get the more expensive plans, to not worry about the cost.

[00:26:55] [SPEAKER_00]: It's really – if you subsidize somebody, it's a two-edged sword for that consumer, isn't it?

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_02]: That's right.

[00:27:04] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, for the consumer, you know, first off, the first issue is the consumer faces – you get the subsidy.

[00:27:10] [SPEAKER_02]: It's paid to the insurance company.

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_02]: But if their income changes over the year and they don't actually go through and it rises, they may have tax penalties potentially at the end that they have to pay in.

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_02]: So that creates an issue.

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_02]: It also creates an issue for plan choices.

[00:27:26] [SPEAKER_02]: They push people into specific plans, the silver plans, in order to, you know, help subsidize that.

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_02]: But it also has meant that those plans' costs rose dramatically during the ACA because of the people who enroll in the silver-loaded plans,

[00:27:46] [SPEAKER_02]: those who have special enrollment plans.

[00:27:49] [SPEAKER_02]: So they've now created new plans that are outside the market that are not subject to subsidies,

[00:27:54] [SPEAKER_02]: which has further increased the subsidies inside Obamacare for those folks and made those plans more expensive.

[00:28:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And they've tried to make it less expensive for those who are not subsidized.

[00:28:05] [SPEAKER_02]: But everybody loves that except for anybody who's a taxpayer, right, because the taxpayer subsidy on those plans is really significant.

[00:28:13] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, when they pass this legislation, there is this expectation that the whole market would move to this model of the exchanges.

[00:28:24] [SPEAKER_00]: But it's never worked out as well as they had hoped.

[00:28:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And they sort of implied that we're going to be able to get just virtually everybody in the country covered under these things.

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_00]: But they've always had – there's been – it reduced the number of uninsured, but there's still a significant number of uninsured people.

[00:28:41] [SPEAKER_00]: And even though a lot of people will sign up for – at the beginning of the year, many of them, I think, drop out through the year.

[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_00]: And so it just really has not been the panacea they thought it would be.

[00:28:52] [SPEAKER_02]: No.

[00:28:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And you look at the cost of, you know, what they call the exchanges, which is essentially a website, right?

[00:28:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's a significant percentage of premium that attaches.

[00:29:01] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's at two and a half or two and a quarter of the premiums over a year, which just makes this one of the most expensive websites you could possibly sign up for as a matter of course.

[00:29:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's really the problem is there were private exchanges, and there are private exchanges.

[00:29:17] [SPEAKER_02]: There are private websites that work better and have more functionality.

[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_02]: But you have to go through a government-run exchange in order to make it work.

[00:29:26] [SPEAKER_02]: In fact, what you're seeing is some of the private companies come in and on the state level come in and significantly have better performance and have better websites at a lower cost than what the federal government does.

[00:29:42] [SPEAKER_00]: So Republicans tried to do a major reform or repeal of Obamacare.

[00:29:47] [SPEAKER_00]: That failed.

[00:29:49] [SPEAKER_00]: They may have tried to do a few reforms.

[00:29:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Have Republicans been able to make many changes from the national, from the federal level to Obamacare?

[00:29:57] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, during the – there was a move – there have been movements back and forth.

[00:30:02] [SPEAKER_02]: During the Trump administration, there was an empowering of the states to sort of have more flexibility in the way plans were done, the way plans were reviewed, and plan options.

[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_02]: In the Biden administration, they've now clamped down on that and have increasingly federalized the plans.

[00:30:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And so that creates – it makes it much more difficult.

[00:30:22] [SPEAKER_02]: There are going to be fewer plan options.

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_02]: They're intending to limit your choice outside of the standard plans and have very few standard plans for people to choose from.

[00:30:31] [SPEAKER_02]: They feel, you know, the best way to choose is to have very few options, which is a little surprising because people can navigate grocery stores and other spots, but they apparently can't navigate, you know, health insurance.

[00:30:41] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just the opposite of what they said they would do.

[00:30:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:44] [SPEAKER_02]: That's right.

[00:30:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And it makes it more expensive, and, you know, it doesn't allow any sort of specialization.

[00:30:53] [SPEAKER_02]: There was, you know, some theories because of the way the plans were designed that eventually some insurers would find some ways to provide unique coverage options,

[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_02]: but they've sort of shut that down pretty consistently.

[00:31:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And so you now have less flexibility than you had before.

[00:31:09] [SPEAKER_00]: You specialize on state issues.

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Have any states been able to take some steps to do a workaround or to improve options for people?

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_02]: A number of states have done what are called – you know, have done some plans that are outside the ACA, the so-called Farm Bureau plans.

[00:31:28] [SPEAKER_02]: I think Texas, your own state, is one of them.

[00:31:30] [SPEAKER_02]: There are a number of others that allow some flexibility in plan design outside of the ACA based on association rules.

[00:31:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And there have been some attempts to – for example, when Nebraska has done some work in the past, when the MIWA – or, excuse me, the association health plan rule came in.

[00:31:49] [SPEAKER_02]: They extended that timeframe for association health plans inside their state from the Trump administration rule.

[00:31:56] [SPEAKER_02]: So there have been some movements, but nothing really major because it's pretty difficult.

[00:32:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Again, I think part of the focus, I think, going forward, especially for Republicans, has got to be looking at the employer market because that's where most people get their health care,

[00:32:10] [SPEAKER_02]: and that's the one that if we see a significant ongoing erosion, that's going to explode the federal budget.

[00:32:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Explain that because I think people don't always realize where people get their health insurance,

[00:32:23] [SPEAKER_00]: but about half the insured people get – either the workers or their dependents get health insurance through an employer, don't they?

[00:32:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's actually a bigger percentage than that, depending on how you count it,

[00:32:36] [SPEAKER_02]: because you've got self-funded – what are called self-funded markets,

[00:32:39] [SPEAKER_02]: which means the employer sort of has a financing arrangement and they're responsible for the costs.

[00:32:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And then there's normal, you know, what are called fully insured health plans.

[00:32:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And then, you know, you obviously have Medicare and Medicaid as pieces of it.

[00:32:53] [SPEAKER_02]: So if you're looking at private health insurance, the vast majority of folks get it from their employer.

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, over 65%, 75%, 60%, 75% get it directly from their employer.

[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_02]: So most of the population gets it from there who's in the fully insured market or in the self-funded market.

[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_02]: They get it through their employer.

[00:33:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And that means when you look at the individual, the Obamacare, what we call the Obamacare market,

[00:33:20] [SPEAKER_02]: which is the individual market, it's really only about 5% of a state's population.

[00:33:25] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's a very small relative.

[00:33:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Stay with us.

[00:33:28] [SPEAKER_00]: We'll be back with J.P. Wieske in just a minute.

[00:33:49] [SPEAKER_03]: You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:33:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And we're back on our final segment with J.P. Wieske.

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_00]: He is a health expert and vice president of state affairs for Horizon Government Affairs.

[00:34:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And we're talking about the health insurance marketplace out there.

[00:34:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And, J.P., the leading person promoting a government-run health care plan has been Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

[00:34:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Kamala Harris supported that at one point and then kind of backed off a little bit.

[00:34:20] [SPEAKER_00]: But I'm not convinced she really has backed off of it.

[00:34:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Tell us what Medicare for All is supposed to do because it's not really Medicare.

[00:34:29] [SPEAKER_02]: No, it's not.

[00:34:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, what people forget about Medicare for All is there's a quiet system.

[00:34:35] [SPEAKER_02]: There's limited coverage.

[00:34:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Your doctor is only going to talk about treatments that are actually covered by Medicare.

[00:34:42] [SPEAKER_02]: There are lots of treatments that don't qualify inside Medicare.

[00:34:46] [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of them do, certainly.

[00:34:48] [SPEAKER_02]: There are costs that attach to it.

[00:34:50] [SPEAKER_02]: You certainly have supplemental coverage that most people have to buy as a piece of this.

[00:34:55] [SPEAKER_02]: So that still maintains a private coverage.

[00:34:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's not fully covered.

[00:35:00] [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, the idea there is theoretical.

[00:35:03] [SPEAKER_02]: But in practice, it creates a lot of problems.

[00:35:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And it creates potentially a lot of coverage issues for consumers.

[00:35:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think we certainly have seen that inside the ACA.

[00:35:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, pushes to cover more stuff that's not, in fact, normally covered, you know,

[00:35:21] [SPEAKER_02]: which results in substantially increasing costs.

[00:35:23] [SPEAKER_00]: There are people who will say, well, I've had so many troubles with my insurance.

[00:35:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just ready for the government to take it over, get a government-run health care system,

[00:35:34] [SPEAKER_00]: and that way we'll have everybody covered and it'll fix the problems.

[00:35:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And they claim it will be much more affordable.

[00:35:41] [SPEAKER_00]: But that's just not the case.

[00:35:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, I think if you look at the numbers and you look at the states that have looked at this

[00:35:48] [SPEAKER_02]: in doing a single-payer system, when you start adding up all the costs,

[00:35:53] [SPEAKER_02]: when you're looking at, you know, military coverage,

[00:35:55] [SPEAKER_02]: when you're looking at coverage from employers, you're taking employer money out,

[00:35:59] [SPEAKER_02]: and you're looking at the amount of taxes you need to sort of subsidize that,

[00:36:03] [SPEAKER_02]: it becomes quickly unaffordable if you're assuming the same size market.

[00:36:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there's a really easy way, which is what Medicare does,

[00:36:11] [SPEAKER_02]: is they just don't pay doctors' market rates.

[00:36:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And so they require the rest of the market to subsidize.

[00:36:16] [SPEAKER_02]: So hospitals and doctors are paid less than they're paid for private coverage.

[00:36:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And so that's your solution is to pay less, which means that you get less of supply,

[00:36:26] [SPEAKER_02]: which creates, you know, other issues.

[00:36:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And we certainly have seen this in nursing and other stuff post-COVID, you know,

[00:36:32] [SPEAKER_02]: the impact of having to wait for appointments and other pieces,

[00:36:35] [SPEAKER_02]: that just gets exacerbated if you're looking at that kind of system.

[00:36:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's interesting because in Medicare, as you point out,

[00:36:41] [SPEAKER_00]: the government pays doctors less than they would somebody who has private health insurance.

[00:36:46] [SPEAKER_00]: They tend to pay less on Medicaid, in fact, significantly less than they pay Medicare.

[00:36:51] [SPEAKER_00]: And there are a number of places, health care systems and so forth,

[00:36:55] [SPEAKER_00]: that won't take Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, because they pay less.

[00:37:00] [SPEAKER_00]: I was pointing out to somebody the other day, the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas,

[00:37:05] [SPEAKER_00]: one of the major cancer centers in the country,

[00:37:07] [SPEAKER_00]: just will not accept Affordable Care Act plans because they don't believe it pays enough,

[00:37:13] [SPEAKER_00]: and so they're not willing to accept it.

[00:37:16] [SPEAKER_02]: That's right.

[00:37:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I think if you see the networks across the country,

[00:37:20] [SPEAKER_02]: the network of doctors that you can actually go to inside Obamacare plans,

[00:37:24] [SPEAKER_02]: they're very, very narrow, and they've gotten narrower and narrower as time has gone up.

[00:37:30] [SPEAKER_00]: So what should we be doing if when government comes, when Congress comes back in,

[00:37:34] [SPEAKER_00]: nothing happens between now and then, but when the new Congress comes in,

[00:37:38] [SPEAKER_00]: what kind of reforms should we be looking at?

[00:37:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think there's multiple levels that we need to look at.

[00:37:45] [SPEAKER_02]: I think first you need to have some flexibility around the health savings accounts.

[00:37:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And what I mean by that is tie it to an actuarial value, which is sort of the plan design,

[00:37:58] [SPEAKER_02]: say a silver plan design, instead of tying it to a deductible.

[00:38:02] [SPEAKER_02]: That has created some inflexibilities and has moved people off of HSAs and created problems.

[00:38:07] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's one of the easy reforms that should be a layup.

[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_02]: I think looking at bringing up the small group market and making it much more affordable for small employers

[00:38:17] [SPEAKER_02]: to provide coverage, potentially if you're going to do some tax subsidies that attach to that.

[00:38:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I think when you're looking at Obamacare, I think putting more power back into the states makes a lot of sense,

[00:38:29] [SPEAKER_02]: because I think these top-down rules for network adequacy or other pieces are going to create problems of availability

[00:38:36] [SPEAKER_02]: in places like northern Wisconsin, you know, where my wife is from.

[00:38:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And you need, you know, those networks are going to become narrower,

[00:38:44] [SPEAKER_02]: and eventually you're going to get back to the world that I lived in when I was a regulator,

[00:38:48] [SPEAKER_02]: where we had counties that were not covered potentially by Obamacare plans,

[00:38:55] [SPEAKER_02]: and we had to, you know, scramble to get somebody to cover it.

[00:38:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And honestly, there were no providers inside those networks, and it wasn't great coverage, but it is what it is.

[00:39:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And we're slowly getting back to that based on the Biden administration rules.

[00:39:09] [SPEAKER_00]: When Trump came into office in 2017, the effort was to try to repeal Obamacare.

[00:39:14] [SPEAKER_00]: My guess is we probably can't repeal it, so can you change it to make it work better,

[00:39:20] [SPEAKER_00]: or can you do something that just kind of goes around it?

[00:39:24] [SPEAKER_00]: What should we do with the Affordable Care Act?

[00:39:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think there's a couple of things that you could do.

[00:39:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Certainly the advent of the HRAs, the health reimbursement arrangements that allow individuals to sort of pick their plan

[00:39:36] [SPEAKER_02]: and have a subsidy potentially from their employer or employers, make it a little bit easier to provide coverage.

[00:39:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Again, I think, you know, narrowing the plan choices is a mistake.

[00:39:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And having more flexibility in actuarial value and allowing cheaper plans to be available again,

[00:39:56] [SPEAKER_02]: I think is going to be important going forward, especially for those outside of the ACA markets.

[00:40:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And then I think you can also look at trying to find some ways to encourage insurers to continue to offer coverage.

[00:40:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Because in a certain number of states, you certainly see a dominance in regions by, you know, hospital-owned health systems,

[00:40:18] [SPEAKER_02]: which is okay.

[00:40:18] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't have any problem with that.

[00:40:20] [SPEAKER_02]: But if there's no competition, you're forced to, you know,

[00:40:23] [SPEAKER_02]: not only do you now have a system where you have limited choice,

[00:40:27] [SPEAKER_02]: but now you have a limited choice of hospitals and health systems because they're the only ones participating in the exchange.

[00:40:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Talk a little bit about the Christian sharing plans.

[00:40:35] [SPEAKER_00]: When the Affordable Care Act passed, they became much more popular.

[00:40:38] [SPEAKER_00]: My wife was in one for a little while.

[00:40:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Are they still active and effective out there?

[00:40:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they're still very, very active.

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, they don't have – and I think they vary in their effectiveness.

[00:40:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So you need to take a look deeply into their history and who they are.

[00:40:56] [SPEAKER_02]: So who you purchase from a firm assuring ministry matters.

[00:41:00] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think, you know, they do provide a – they provide another choice.

[00:41:04] [SPEAKER_02]: There is no guarantee of payment.

[00:41:06] [SPEAKER_02]: But by the same token, I think a number of folks have subscribed to the plans and have had some success.

[00:41:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I think it varies.

[00:41:14] [SPEAKER_02]: I think if you've got significant health issues, you know, you may want to – you may or may not want to look at those

[00:41:21] [SPEAKER_02]: as a matter of course just because of the guarantee aspect.

[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, for most people, I think it's an option for them to take a look at.

[00:41:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, my wife, when she got her plan canceled on Blue Cross because of Obamacare,

[00:41:34] [SPEAKER_00]: she went into one and had it for two or three years, and it worked fine for us.

[00:41:39] [SPEAKER_00]: So at least some of the groups, I think, as you point out, probably worked very well.

[00:41:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Others don't know.

[00:41:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Some others came into being after they allowed that to happen.

[00:41:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think what happens, like anything, and you can find the same thing in, you know,

[00:41:56] [SPEAKER_02]: in quote-unquote Obamacare plans.

[00:41:58] [SPEAKER_02]: There are people who use the name and are not actually legitimate entities.

[00:42:03] [SPEAKER_02]: So you can find illegitimate health insurers, some of whom are using names of major health insurers

[00:42:09] [SPEAKER_02]: as their quote-unquote network or whatever.

[00:42:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And same thing with the sharing ministries.

[00:42:14] [SPEAKER_02]: There are those that are claiming to be the quote sharing ministries but are not real.

[00:42:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And so you need to watch out in all of those to make sure you're looking at, you know,

[00:42:22] [SPEAKER_02]: legitimate companies that are working through.

[00:42:25] [SPEAKER_02]: So there's no difference with health insurance than others.

[00:42:27] [SPEAKER_02]: If you go through, you know, somebody who knows what they're doing,

[00:42:29] [SPEAKER_02]: that's how you need to make it work.

[00:42:31] [SPEAKER_00]: J.P.

[00:42:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Waskimi has been joining me to talk about health insurance.

[00:42:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And before him, Joel White, both with Horizon Government Affairs.

[00:42:38] [SPEAKER_00]: We have a link to Joel White's op-ed available on pointofview.net,

[00:42:43] [SPEAKER_00]: so I'd encourage you to go there.

[00:42:44] [SPEAKER_00]: J.P., thank you so much for joining me.

[00:42:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.

[00:42:48] [SPEAKER_00]: When we come back, we're going to look at some of the economic issues facing us in this election.

[00:42:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Taxes, spending, tariffs, and price controls.

[00:42:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Joining us, Dr. David Henderson.

[00:42:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Stay with us.

[00:42:59] [SPEAKER_00]: We'll be back on Point of View.

[00:43:05] [SPEAKER_03]: In 19th century London, two towering historical figures did battle,

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[00:43:14] [SPEAKER_03]: London was home to Karl Marx, the father of communism,

[00:43:18] [SPEAKER_03]: and legendary Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon.

[00:43:22] [SPEAKER_03]: London was in many ways the center of the world, economically, militarily, and intellectually.

[00:43:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Mark sought to destroy religion, the family, and everything the Bible supports.

[00:43:34] [SPEAKER_03]: Spurgeon stood against him, warning of socialism's dangers.

[00:43:38] [SPEAKER_03]: Spurgeon understood Christianity is not just religious truth.

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