Veronique de Rugy - Sr. Fellow Mercatus Center Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now there's some healthcare right there, six twenty three or
so time here on Houston's Morning News. Right. I expect
better health care than that, and I generally get better
health care than that. What I don't see is cheaper
health care. There is nothing that has happened that is
leading to cheaper health care. Maybe we're going to get
some cheaper prescription prices because these deals that are being

(00:21):
worked out with big Pharma, but not cheaper healthcare. Verronique
de Roge joins us senior fellow at Mercadis Center. I
know Democrats have been holding out on the government shutdown
because they want to give illegal aliens their health care back,
and they want to expand Obamacare again and basically get
back up a one point five trillion in cuts. But

(00:41):
none of this is going to lead to less expensive
health care, is it.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
No, it's not good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
You forgot that.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
They also want to keep having tax payers pay for
most of the premium for high income tax payers. Because
one of the things that the COVID era expansion, let's say,
Biden era expansion of the of the Obamacare tax credits,

(01:09):
one of the things that it did is that it
actually lifts the cap on income requirement, So a family
four with income of five hundred thousand dollars in some
uh in some cases could get this tax credit, which,
by the way, is also been expended. So it means

(01:29):
that the share the taxpayer subsidizing of the tax credit
is higher than than of the premium, that that that
the texture is financing is bigger. So it's all sorts
of things that are just finally wrong when you have
a two dollars deficit. Uh And and yeah, it's not

(01:49):
going giving the money considering that a lot of the
these uh, these health plans are not even used. Basically,
this money that's going into the pocket of insurers uh
and they love it obviously, but it's not it's not
helping healthcare and subsidizing uh insurance premium is not going

(02:14):
to make healthcare cheaper because this is about how much
we pay for it. In order to make healthcare cheaper,
you have to increase the supply of healthcare, right, and
this does nothing of the sort.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
No, you're right, you're absolutely right about that. And here's
here's the biggest concern I have. What I have a
couple of concerns that not the least of which is
how simple we are that that you can have politicians
tell you that we just want you know, we're just
providing health health care for Americans. That that's that's about
the only thing that they're saying about this on the

(02:50):
left is work. We're just trying to provide health care
for Americans, and that people accept that as an answer.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah, and it's it's also it's also I just don't
understand that Republicans are not out there every day, every hour,
everywhere where people talk to them say the COVID if
those COVID extensions have been written in the law with

(03:17):
by the Democrats to expire at the end of the year,
and and now they're trying to change the terms. And
by the way, when they expire.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
The free COVID era expansion.

Speaker 3 (03:34):
Text credit will still be there. So it means that
a lot of people who were who were getting the
text credit, especially lower income and middle income people, will
still have access to these tax credits. They make it
sound as if getting.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Rid of the expansion, which was a COVID emergency expansion,
is getting rid of all tax credits for Obamacare about
a care plans.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Yeah, Well, simply not true.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
I think if we've learned nothing else about government. It's
that sunset sunset provisions. They never see the sunset.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
They just.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
They ultimately better, these better. We are not in an emergency,
and this is a handout to insurance company and hire
income people. And that's just like, it's just wrong, it's
just plain wrong. We have two trillion dollar deficit. The
driver or future debt is the explosion in healthcare spending.
They better get serious about trying ways to expand healthcare

(04:38):
supply and healthcare quality to everyone so that moostht Americans
can get healthcare at affordable price. And it is not
by subsidizing the plan that you buy from insurance company.
Not how it works.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Well said, we're out of time, but thank you so
much for your time. Beryl nik A Senior Fellow. The
Barcadis Centered