Brian Phillips - TPPF Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Seven, twenty two, our time here in Houston's Morning News.
I can't believe that we're still talking about subsidies for Obamacare,
but we are because there are some weak need Republicans
seemingly willing to go along with Democrats to at least
restore parts of the Obamacare subsidies here to talk about
with US. Brian Phillips, Texas Public Policy Foundation. All Republicans

(00:22):
have to do is stick to their guns on this one. Brian.
The question is will they.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
No. I don't think they will, and that's really unfortunate.
I mean, I think they need to be reminded that
exactly what the subsidies are. The subsidies really are the
glue that holds this unholy alliance between the insurance companies,
the federal government, and the hospitals together, this system that
is driving up costs and has been driving up costs

(00:48):
for decades. You know, as you recall, you know, step
one is the federal government requires everybody to have insurance,
but not just to have insurance, it has to be
Obamacare compliant. And so everybody's insurance affected by the regulations
and mandates, and so that's driving up costs. The hospitals
know we all have to have this insurance. This is
step two, and so they can essentially charge whatever they

(01:10):
want because they know that the insurance companies have to
cover it the insurance companies. Step three is you would
think that the in insurance companies would push back on that,
but of course they don't. They cover whatever the hospitals
say to cover because they can just pass those costs
on to us through premiums and high deductibles. And this
is where the subsidies come in. This is normally where
the pressure point would be, where the pain would be,

(01:31):
where we would see these skyrocketing premiums and we would
be upset. But if you're on Obamacare, that's where the
subsidies fall. The substis come in, and the American tax
payer now pays the bulk of what these low income
folks or everybody that's on Obamacare would normally pay. And
so you have the subsidies which are essentially masking the
true cost of healthcare, and so you don't really have

(01:54):
that pressure point. And so nobody in the system, from
the federal government to the insurancers, the insurance companies, or
the hospitals, or even the premium payers. Nobody in the
system understands how much this stuff costs, and so you
don't have what you would normally have in in a
functioning market, a system that would signal to people that,
you know, something new needs to happen or something needs

(02:15):
to pressure people these costs to get down. And so
you know, if they understood that, then they would know,
you know, that's what's causing this this uh, you know,
massive spike and healthcare costs. And instead of doing the
right thing and starting to reform and unwind this this
you know, death spiral that we're in instead, it's it's
too easy just to say, well, we're just going to

(02:36):
continue the subsidies and keep it going.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Well, and you mentioned the poor folks. Unfortunately it's not
just the poor folks. There's plenty of people who make
six figures that are on Obamacare because they can be well.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Then that's exactly right. And as I mentioned, basically all
of us are on Obamacare because of the regulations and
the mandates. And this is really the insidious thing about
this is that if you have private insurance through your employer,
because these costs are going up and up and up,
it's creating pressure on your employer to drop your health care,

(03:07):
to drop offering you healthcare, because then you can get
on Obamacare. One of the stipulations is if you have
access to employer or sponsored health care, you can't get
onto the exchanges. So that creates an incentive for the
employers to say, look, we can't afford this anymore. The
premiums that we're covering on the side of the premiums
we're covering is exploding. You know, it's hurting our costs,

(03:28):
is damaging our business model. So we're just going to
drop health care for our employees. And then the solution
for the employees is then for all of us to
get on the exchanges, which of course is exactly how
this program was designed. It was meant for all of
us to ultimately be on government sponsored healthcare.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Right exactly, that's the end goal. Certainly, how much of
a problem is lobbying by big medicine. That's what medicine
has become. Family There's not a lot of family physicians
left on this planet anymore. Just about everybody's working for
big medicine in one way, shape, form, or another.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Well, that's exactly right. And as I said, you know
in this death spiral that we're in the hospital systems.
The insurers, the pharmaceutical companies, all of them benefit from
this system that creates nothing but upward pressure on prices,
and so the hospitals are all charging whatever they want.
The insurance companies are covering it because all they do

(04:21):
is pass the premium increases down to the customers. And
of course everybody knows the problem with with drugs and
how much they've exploded in the past, so it's not
you know, it's obviously the lobbying works out for them
because the more that they lobby, the more that they
keep the system going, the more that the costs go
up and up and up.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Right, Jar, thank you, sir, appreciate your time. Brian Phillips
at the Texas Public Policy Foundation at seven twenty six