2027488002 and the line for uninsured callers is 2027488003. We always welcome your comments on twitter and facebook. Send us a tweet at cspanwj and post your thoughts on facebook, facebook. Com cspan. As we mentioned, we have talked about a lot of issues this week. This morning it is health care. This summer shows a lot of people they surveyed were thinking the same thing, the top issue facing america today, health care. Surveyed. Se carl cannon writing health care has emerged for the top issue for as the top issue for american voters. Any Political Party ignoring this topic or misreading the publics mood does so at its own peril. The new survey asked respondents to rank the policy issue they consider the most important to americas future. Just a little bit more from the real clear poll, some detail and what they found in the area of theth care 28 think Health Care System in america is broken, we need a completely new system. 39 of those surveyed said the Health Care System is not working well, we need to improve the system we have now. 29 thinking the Health Care System is good, but not perfect. Just 4 think the Health Care System is working well. We welcome your thoughts and comments. 2027488000 for those of you who get your insurance through the aca. 2027488001 if your you are employerinsured. And 2027488002 for medicare and medicaid. Here is a look at the best and worst states for health care in 2019. An article in forbes and they talk about the survey by wallethub. Where you live in the country will greatly impact the service you get from a health care provider. Accessibility, measured cost, determineed outcomes which states are providing the best and worst health care. Here is what they discovered. The top five best states for. Ealth care in u. S. Minnesota, massachusetts, rhode island, district of columbia, and vermont. And the five worst states according to that survey from wallethub, alaska, North Carolina, mississippi, South Carolina, and arkansas. On the democratic side, the benchmark has bid been the medicare for all proposal. Here is some of what Bernie Sanders had to say earlier this summer. [video clip] of providing massive profits for the Drug Companies wallnsurance companies and street, we must provide a health that provides Quality Health care to every man, woman, and child in this country in a costeffective way. What medicareely for all is all about. Under the legislation i have authored, every family in america would receive , allehensive coverage basic Health Care Needs are covered and in the process, middleclass families would save thousands of dollars a year by eliminating their private insurance costs as we move to a publicly funded program. The transition to the medicare for all program would take place over 4 years. In the first year, benefits to older people would be expanded to include dental care, hearing aids, and eyeglasses. Host senator Bernie Sanders and some detail on his medicare for all proposal. Youre asking you what would change in the u. S. Health care system. We welcome your comments on twitter as well. Send those to cspanwj. We must stop putting a on human care ah as health suchr sign on human rights as health care. Obamacare was supposed to Fix Health Care and immigration is the top concern. Health care and pollution go handinhand and rebecca says where is all that cheap, Wonderful Health care promised by donald j. Trump and the gop . Welcoming your thoughts at cspanwj and on facebook at facebook. Com cspan. Lets hear from sue in michigan on medicare. Caller good morning. I have a couple comments. My first one is i am on medicare and i have medigap and i like that. Prescription medical coverage is a bit of a wreck and i will tell you why. , theyou get into tier 3 cost is astronomical. It is cheaper for me to buy insurance with cash. The other comment is my husband, he has not reached 65 yet and he foraying 550 a month catastrophic insurance. It is 8,000 catastrophic, that is ridiculous. There is nothing to bring the cost down at all. We shopped all over. You find itid easier, more affordable to pay your Health Care Bills with cash. Do doctors say or the workers say upfront this is going to be less expensive if you pay in cash . Caller no. What i am saying is the drug coverage. Host got it. Caller i have a good medigap. When i was employed, my insurance was terrible. I got better insurance with medicare and medigap. This does not include Prescription Drug coverage. These Drug Companies or the Insurance Company that classified these drugs. If you have a drug and they 4, or 5,it as a 3, your deductible is 4, or 5, your deductible is crazy. That is what i am talking about, Something Like that. I am going to be moving into the. Orthern part of michigan there are doctors refusing to take medicare and they wont take anymore. You either have to have private. There are doctors refusing to insurance or you have got to pay cash. This is where we are coming from and i cannot see where anybody is doing anything about the situation. Host sue calling on the line for those with medicare or medicaid, 2027488002. If you are on the Affordable Care act, that line, 2027488000. Get your of you who insurance through your employer, 2027488002. The uninsured line, 2027488003. This first hour, our Campaign Issues theme is asking what would you change in the u. S. Health care system. Hear from linda in mississippi, good morning. Caller good morning. Change i am getting medicare and i dont believe in medicare for all because there are some restrictions on medicare as it changeis. We need to fix the Affordable Care act for everyone and not mess with the Health Insurance provided through your employer because that is a mess, you know. Fix the price of drugs. That system it took too long to get the Affordable Care act that is what bernie, Elizabeth Warren, and all the democrats should be doing in the of giving us pie sky. Fix what we have and leave my medicare alone. Host a piece in this weeks Washington Post has the headline, where is Elizabeth Warrens Health Care Plan . Doubt who hasch the momentum for senator Elizabeth Warren is drawing huge crowds while joe doubt who has the momentum biden and senator Bernie Sanders are dropping in many polls. Warren seems to be wowing voters and Party Insiders and a big part of her appeal is the image she has cultivated as the candidate who has thought the most about the challenges of governingwarren with a plan for everything. Where is her Health Care Plan . Missionmost a pizarro and barely anyone has seemed to notice given that it is the domestic issue that gets more discussion than any other. It is not that warren does not talk about health care or hasnt been clear about what she believes in the general sense, because she has. So far, she has avoided some of the trickiest questions by not putting specifics on paper. Larry is next on our medicare line in indiana. Good morning, larry. Caller good morning. My thought is all these people running around for president that holler medicare for all. Let them go today and give up their private insurance that our government pays for and let them go on medicare and all these people talking about medicare for all, my wife and i pay over 600 a month for medicare and a supplement, so it is not as free as everybody thinks it is. Realizeverybody would all these people talking about free, it is not free. Host we hear from eric next to gets v. A. Insurance. Caller i believe thank you, america, for giving me this opportunity. I think we need to really discuss about how do we remove the employerbased health care funding. Why are we allowing for our employers to provide health care . We should eliminate that part. I dont know how, but the state should eliminate employerbased health care if these individuals are allowed to buy the policy by themselves. Host let me ask you something. Let me show you something, a little bit of statistics on the number of people who get there health care through their employer. About 150 2 million americans get health care through their jobs according to Kaiser Family foundation. How do you replace that if you get rid of employerbased health care . Atler each state needs to, some point in time, work and go outte so we can all and buy insurance individually. We are not talking about for free, but individual health care. Can buy plans, families this is a form of some type of slavery. Are employers providing health care for people . Allowd to stop this and people to simply by Health Care Plans for their family. Host are you happy with your health care . Is that the type the type of health care you think people ought to be able to buy . Caller i went into the service and i get v. A. Health care. As we sit back and look, especially california can do it, eliminate the employer Health Care System and move to just Funding Health care individually where individuals can buy a health care program. Host eric from california. Has focused on health care and in a speech, she talks about womens reproductive rights. [video clip] not aht now, and it is new moment in america, but it is a highlighted moment, womens access to Reproductive Health is under attack in america and we have got to stand firm. We have got to stand firm. A few weeks ago i was in alabama and you all know what is happening and is likely to missouri. Georgia and we are not being missouri. We are not being alarmist when we say women will die. In particular, poor women and women of color, those who cannot leave where they are, which is a place where politicians have decided to tell women what to do with their own bodies. They areot leave where where politicians have decided they know better about what a woman needs than their own physician and we are at a woman in time moment in time requiring us to recognize these women are going to need our support and help in their families because they have a right, of course, to make decisions about their lives and so many of them will not even be able to leave the state in which they live. I will tell you after elected, i am prepared to require that as it relates to any state that has a history of restricting a womans access to Reproductive Health care, that that state has to clear that law, to clear it for constitutional muster, took clear that it comports with roe v. Wade through the United States department of justice. That is called preclearance and until that law clears for constitutional muster, it cannot go into effect. Issues, itign 2020 is health care, what needs to be changed. Obamacare once and for all, do not fall for medicare for all scam propaganda pushed by senator sanders. Senator sanders is misguided. Dave says preexisting conditions and extended coverage medicare would be great, says carter. Still not eligible for any benefits, pay in advance, that is how it should be. Eliminate deductibles if you wait work paycheck to paycheck. Other stories we are keeping our eye on this morning on washington journal include Hurricane Dorian strengthening to a hurricane. Usa today headline, it could hit the southeast coast for the weekend. The National Hurricane center said the threat of hurricane conditions in florida is increasing. 115 mileperhour wind likely to hit the east coast of florida on sunday or monday morning and the expanded window, florida into southern georgia. We will go to georgia and hear bert from columbus on the aca. Good morning. Caller good morning. I appreciate you taking my call. I want to make a comment before i comment about Kamala Harriss you cannot substitute Birth Control with abortion. That is what they want to do. I think abortion is only necessary if a womans life is in peril or any other emergency situation, you cannot keep having abortions if you keep getting pregnant. Affordable Health Care Needs to be revamped. I have a 6000 a year deductible. Every time i go to the doctor, i have to pay a copayment and after the copayment, i get a 300, 400. The guy from california who withs you away employerbased health care doesnt know what he is talking about because when you have employees helping with health care, they pay for some of it. Discount, you can if youit a lot better dont have to do it individually like i do. I dont work for anybody, so i dont have employerbased health care. Host this Affordable Care has gone up this year. Has that figure been going up each year . Caller this is the first year i have had it, i have been trying to get it for 10 years. This is the first year i have had it. I dont know what it will be next year, but i had a brother on medicare and medicaid and he was a veteran and they finally switched he had cancer and they thought theys they cured cancer. He just died about a week ago from cancer because the v. A. Cap putting him off and putting him off and would not let him get any kind of treatments. Host very sorry to hear about that. Tell me one more thing, is order one of the states, are you eligible at offer expanded medicaid . Caller i dont think so because every time i tried for it, they told me i was not eligible. My wife is disabled. She is eligible for everything because she is disabled. I was not eligible for everything, but i am her caretaker. I have to stay with her 24 7, so i am not eligible for anything except Affordable Health care. Caller thank you, sir. Thank you for everything. What does not need to be changed is our american Health Care System and what the democrats and their Fake News Media will that it will bethat similar to the government run european Health Care System and there is a reason europeans and canadians come to our country to get care. That system forces people to wait. My motherinlaw in europe needed hip surgery, she was in extreme pain. She was forced to wait for over one year in pain before she could get to the hospital for a hip operation and my wifes aunt had cancer. She was forced to wait over 6 months before being admitted to a hospital. It will not only force people to time. Ome along periods of negative forbe a the quality of the health care. Before the Veterans Administration was changed with the veterans care act President Trump put in, our veterans were dying by the hundreds because they were forced to wait online. That is the system democrats would put into effect. It would be a disaster. People will be forced to wait unnecessarily. Fairfax, virginia, gets health care through her employer. What needs to be changed in the Health Care System . Caller first of all, thanks for taking my call. I would like to say i went back to school to become a nurse and one of the things we learned about was costsharing and cost shifting. When a hospital takes patients that cannot pay, what they do is they raise the cost of services around the board to those who can pay, who have insurance. The Insurance Companies have a higher cost for service that might have cost less 30 years ago before they had as many uninsured that they were covering for and so the net raises the premiums for those that have insurance. With the in directly illegal aliens, whatever you want to call it, in our country. The particular hospital i trained at had a very heavy population of that. Not to make any judgments on individuals, but that is the real reason, in my estimation, it is a huge part of why our Health Care Costs have gone up. I dont think the answer to that problem is to have some sort of medicare for all. I think we need to get our immigration system under control to keep costs under control across the board in all areas, so that is my comment. Ist our topic today campaign 2020 issues, health care. What would you do to change the u. S. Health care system . This is tom in oklahoma. Caller hi. I am so pleased to be speaking to cspan. I wanted unfiltered, unbiased foundtary i am so i you on my channel. I dont think you are biased at all. I have heard people call and say i think you are biased i dont think you are. I am a low income person. I am under a dual plan and my medications cost me 1. 60 for 3. 70 forugs and anything that is namebrand. Get a help get a help button fr free. That is a big help to me because if i fall down, sometimes i have very few friends. I would be one of those persons laying on the ground for two weeks. That is a big deal. Plus, i get 2000 worth of dental care a year. Host all of this is other under medicare . Caller medicare, medicaid. Host appreciate you calling in this morning. We spoke to the caller from georgia about medicare, medicaid. The Kaiser Family foundation, the states who have so far not adopted the expansion of medicaid. Wyoming, south dakota, wisconsin, kansas, missouri, oklahoma, texas, tennessee, South Carolina, South Carolina youorth carolina asking how would you change u. S. Health care . 2027488000 for those who get the Affordable Care act. Those of you employed or insured by your employer, 2027488001. If you are on medicare or medicaid, 2027488002. And the line for uninsured folks, 2027488003. Read the story a moment ago about the potential for hurricane the likelihood of Hurricane Dorian striking the floor to coast is on President Trumps mind. Puerto rico is in great shape with Hurricane Dorian taking a largely different route than anticipated, thank you to fema, first responders, and all working so hard and being prepared. Dorian looks like it will be hitting florida late thursday night. It will be a very big hurricane, perhaps one of the biggest. Glen gets insurance through his work. Good morning. Caller good morning. Here is the solution. Wants to give everybody free college, the democrats. No more socialist liberal arts degrees, only medical degrees. Medical only. What the government needs and give them free education, but that is what we are going to get and weve got everything covered. Host we go to alabama and hear from deadlock deborah. Caller good morning. I wanted to call and say i am on medicare. I like the program. To see the doctors i want to see. I also have a federal retirement insurance. Close to 500 for my federal retirement through my pays 100 ont everything. We have no copays. Our medicine is low. My problem with the system is the medicaid system, which my sister is on. Lungtic, kidney problems, problems, she is on oxygen. She only gets 13 doctor visits a year and that includes her Family Doctor. When you have five or six doctors and you get to see them twice a year. Yourthe medicaid, you get prescriptions every three months, so you have to see your Family Doctor every three months. Host what if she has an emergency . Caller that is a hard and fast rule. If she has an emergency, she has to pay for it herself. By the end of the year, she has to pay to see her Family Doctor. She has always been disabled. Her husband had a motorcycle accident, a slight until disability, so they draw together 1100 a month. It makes it hard on them. I wish they had what i have, but they dont. I just wish medicaid would allow them to see the doctors they need instead of letting them visits a year. Host lets hear from President Trump and his comments on what his administration has done so far and potential future plans for health care. [video clip] every major democrat running for president supports a massive government takeover of health care that would raid medicare and destroy the private Health Insurance plans of millions of American Families that they love. My administration is defending your right to choose the plan and the doctor that is best for you. Individual mandate is gone. The most unpopular part of obamacare and we almost have obamacare gone. We are close. We would have had it before, but we had a vote that was a little bit surprising. I am sure none of you knew who that vote was. I think it is going to be better. You watch. We got rid of the individual mandate, which was the most unpopular part of obamacare. I had a political decision, due i make it rate alec cesar, do say we run it and well or run it badly and have everybody upset . We said we have to run it well, but it is much too expensive. We got rid of the worst part of it, individual mandates. Where you have the privilege of buying the right not to have to pay for expensive insurance that ando good Health Insurance you have to remember this, republicans, i speak for every one of them, we will always conditions. Existing campaigns to reduce the price of Prescription Drugs largest decline in drug vices in 51 years. Years, weecline in 51 have launched a Historic Initiative to require Price Transparency empowering you to choose the lowest price for yourself and your family. Believe it or not, you did not have the right to go in and price your drugs. I wonder if big pharma had something to do with that. Host else care this morning, talking about what needs to be changed. Looks like the debate is set. The headline in the Washington Times this morning, dnc faces criticism for stricter standards. Half of 2020 not expected to make the cut. 10 candidates appear to have made the cut for the september 12 debate including joe biden and 5 sitting senators. Warren, kamalath harris, cory booker, and amy klobuchar. The other 4 who have met fundraising thresholds are Pete Buttigieg, beto orourke of texas, andrew yang, and former housing secretary hooley and castro. Julian mark stone says not sure what the answer is, the aca is not working. Singlepayer is too expensive. Really do not have a free market capitalistic system. Nobody is trying to lower the cost of services with Prescription Drugs or services. Republicans cannot fix it, where is our Beautiful Health care . Saying decisions are made with money in mind instead of patient wellbeing. Jay is on the Affordable Care act in maryland. Go ahead with your comment. Cspan. Good morning, i want to thank you for your service. The affordable Health Care Plan really helped me get by. Affordable health care is not as bad as everybody says. On Company Offered health care. In order for me to get off the 80 coverage, i have to pay over 10,000 for a family plan with two children and that is basically no insurance being offered, not to mention copays and fees and forms i have to pay in the Doctors Office that school asks for. 10,000 is your contribution to your employers plan . Caller it is on top of my monthly the dockable and i have a 10,000 deductible. Get 80 for me to coverage, i have to pay 10000 and it is not a Health Care Insurance at all. Host what do we do to fix it . Caller i am really liking what Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren what they have to say about singlepayer. Really enjoy that it canada and other European Countries have done it and why do we need to compare ourselves to third world countries such as venezuela . Compare ourselves with a first world nation and model after them and they get better. The listen on the radio, cspan radio app imagine in the washington area. Joe is also in maryland and uninsured. To tell us about that and what would you change in the u. S. Health care system . Caller my observation is big pharma and Insurance Companies are for profit. It is important for these Big Companies to make money. As a result, they are more focused on their bottom line and not on providing the best service to us that we need. I think there is not one Sweeping Change that will fix this system. I think aca works in some ways and aca could be changed in some ways. The biggest thing we need to do is stop calling ourselves republicans or democrats and looking to see how we could lower the cost for people that have Health Insurance and that are dependent on medication and come to the table not pointing fingers, but looking for solutions for the people. Host thank you. Top issues on the campaign trail 2020. Health care is our focus this morning and what would you change about that . Withclear Opinion Research their poll this summer on the top issues at health care right at the top. 36 of those surveyed. Keeping an eye on other news, this from the Financial Times in terms of what is going on in the u. K. Uproar as johnson shuts down parliament to protect brexit plan. They write force johnson plunged written into constitution britain into constitutional uproar when he pledged to shut. Own parliament for five weeks the move was described by a house of Commons Speaker as constitutional outrage. Ruth davidson is set to quit today and has quit according to news from the u. K. This morning. We cover british house of commons, the prime ministers questions will resume next wednesday and you will see that at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan 2. Lets hear from rick in oregon who gets his insurance through the v. A. Caller yes. I think the v. A. Is a perfect model for how to effectively bring universal health care to the masses. My weight times are very brief. If i need acute care, i get it interest i get it instantly. Medication is taken care of andugh our military service i dont have the kind of problems with the financial end of it like a lot of people do. We are also associated with Oregon Health and Science University and teaching facility down the hill and a number of the professionals that work with us come from there. We have the benefit of having people who are actually fully qualified young physicians. They spent twice as much time weheir patients, as do go back and talk to the supervising physician about the determination on how to treat the patient. We have the benefit of getting excellent supervision and enthusiastic physician who spends more time with you, excellent care from a great facility and i think it is a great model for what we could do in the country and should be taken a look at. P taking a look at other health for care in the private health care field, what would that be . Caller i think it is what i emphasized, to improve access of the emerging physicians and Health Care Professionals to actual work in the field and do so in such a way raising the next generation of Health Care Professionals means they have to do handson somewhere. If we can put in to effect a situation where that occurs and acquisition. Quate 200 for on the planet. The United States is the only one without universal care and i think the governments job is to take care of its people and that includes health care. Host lets hear from kathleen in florida, who is on medicare. Caller good morning. The first thing i think people ant understand is there is twotiered system all over europe and these countries that people point to about the benefits of singlepayer and the people talking to us about how health care for all they will not be part of that system. There is another system that will work then. People also i dont hear any between healthe care, medical care, and dental care. Most people on these plans when they need dental surgery, oral surgery, it doesnt get covered. 2000,e on their own, 3000 they have to pay out of profit pocket. That was done away with and now we have a system that people dont like. All the people here being treated at no cost to them, somebody has to pay for that. There are people who pay nothing and that has to factored into the cost of hospital stays and doctor visits. Host from bladensburg, maryland. Matt, go ahead. Caller okay. I appreciate if you give me as much time as you gave the person before this last woman because i feel like i have something to offer and i feel there are a lot of people who dont know what they are saying. The one person you cut off was the gentleman on disability about 5 calls ago and i think he was right on target. I am on medicare and medicaid. First of all, no health care covers dental, that i know. Medicare doesnt, medicaid doesnt. The woman that said her daughter had diabetes medicaid is a supplement, it doesnt cover that. For, i pay a dollar prescriptions like that gentleman said. I have not had to wait, that is the biggest myth republicans tell you. I have not had to wait read i have had three major surgeries and one of them i had at hopkins. One of them i had at georgetown university, which is an excellent hospital and i did not have to wait at all. I did not go to see some which dr. This is all republican jargon. Dont believe this stuff. Let me finish. I dont pay for anything. Literally nothing and if people looked at this like they look at Social Security, it goes in a circular manner and everyone benefits if everyone would get on it, i dont know if people dont want Health Insurance, they dont have to pay for it and it can be done because if we take the money and keep giving to the filthy rich and the people who dont deserve it, tax breaks, et cetera if people put this altogether, anyone who doesnt want this is either misinformed or missing something in their brain matter. Have a good day. Host matt, are you still there . I guess not. Onwill go to sam in kansas medicare our medicare line. Caller thanks for taking my call. It kind of looks to me we are wrong way. This the instead of letting Insurance Companies pay these high costs, why are we lowering the cost of to get you healthy . Why arent we spending any time on taking care of what gets you sick, like water . The water in this country has all kinds of heavy metal, chemicals from the companies up the river from where you are at. If you are getting bad water, it will make you bad, make you sick. Also, get the sugar out of our food. Be ahink that might not health issue . An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Care is a very complicated thing, especially when you are trying to chase the rabbit down the rabbit hole, but lets be sensible. Doctors exceptts medicare patients, but aside from that excuse, Doctors Offices will no longer have to hire billers. This one says democrats the aca was passed by only democrats in 2010. It was a complete fail at inception. Yes, mr. President , your beautiful Health Care Plan is so much better than the aca. On the campaign trail now off the trail, kirsten gillibrand. She is quitting her president ial campaign saying she knows it is not her time. Tractiongled to gain in a crowded field. Democrats hoping to take on President Trump her decision comes after news that she had fallen short of meeting the requirements for september. In the past two weeks, jay inslee, john hickenlooper, and seth moulton of massachusetts left the race. 20 democrats remain and only half will be on the debate stage september 12. Gets his pennsylvania, insurance from his employer. Caller good morning. You had two callers, one from new jersey and one from virginia. You do not want the canadian or European Health care type. I spoke to this past spring down in myrtle beach and i spoke to canadian when we were getting i engagedolfing him about health care and he said a friend of his his story. Listen to this his father used to spend a couple months down there for the winter. He had a sore throat and it would not go away so he went to see a doctor and they found he had throat cancer. They said you have to be treated pretty soon because if you want to save your life. They contacted the authorities in canada and they would not pay for it. Canada will not pay for you outside the border. You either have to have insurance or something upfront before they can treat you. He went back to canada. He could not get in the hospital, he had to wait to see a doctor. The waiting time is what kills you. The waiting time was over four months and by that time, the cancer was so advanced, that man died. I can tell you three or four other stories costa rica has the best Health Care System i have seen. They have a private Health Care System if you want to buy into it you will pay for Government Health care. You are not going to get on it for nothing, you have to pay for it. Costa rica is the most advanced country in south america. They do not have welfare. If you dont work, you dont eat. This keeps people in line from having children all over the place. All of a sudden, i cant work anymore and you have to take care of me. You do not want what these people are offering because another thing in canada, everything is extremely expensive. Yeah, your health care is free, expensive. Xtremely anything you can think of is more expensive. Therefore, like the canadian told me, he says we never anticipated this to happen he says until it was put into effect. I dont care what the guy from maryland says or whatever, you have not lived it, this man has. Host question about changing the u. S. Health care, your thoughts, about 10 minutes more of your calls and comments. I want to show you the comments of senator amy klobuchar. She talked about Prescription Drug prices at the iowa state fair. [video clip] he promised on fox news he was going to bring pharmaceutical prices down so low it would make your head spin. It makes your head spin win 2000 of them have gone up in double digits. I have been taking on pharma since i got to washington. I leave the bill to unleash the power of 43,000 seniors to negotiate prices under medicare and bring those prices down. I lead the bill with senator grassley, previously senator mccain and i did this bill together and this is a bill that says lets bring in less expensive drugs from other countries like canada. Why should our country that has developed so many of these great pharmaceuticals be paying twice as much as a great country of canada . Companies pay off generics to keep their product off the market. They both win and we lose. Host senator klobuchar at the iowa state fair and from the des moines register, their editorial this morning, iowa caucus first impressions. Has the quick wit needed to challenge trump on health care in particular. They write she embraces revitalizing Rural Communities and says she supports Health Care Reform that brings down prices, gets young people insured, and uses the public option. She relished having more time to talk about pharmaceutical legislation and a minnesota man who died after rationing insolent, big pharma has two lobbyists for every member of congress and politicians need to stand up to the industry. Lets hear from al in florida, gets v. A. Insurance. Caller good morning. Wanted to call i use the south georgia, north florida v. A. System and last to painad to go management and it took five months to get to Pain Management. After i finally got the physician to agree to send me the referral itself, it took three months before i could see a Pain Management doctor. Likewise, Mental Health, it took a little over three months for my Mental Health referral to go through. Even on the v. A. Community program, right now, they just told me yesterday our v. A. Is 55 days out to process the referral. Or Community Health think, is atem, i great way to understand the governments plan for health care and the guy that called earlier that was in a top rated v. A. Facility, i dont think countrywide. Ase down here, it is terrible. Host there is a vast difference in your experience in the u. K. And our caller from oregon, his experience. Why do you think that is . Caller he said that facility was a high rated facility ranked fifth in the nation. Runhave administrators that the facilities as well, so you are going to have individualized facilities across america. As a general rule, just the processes and the amount of staff available to process paperwork, that is a big problem. I am also a registered nurse and have worked in Emergency Rooms across the board. That is a problem with medicare, processingv. A. Is a big deal. Host are you still working as a nurse . Caller yes. Host thanks for calling in with your experience. Stephanie is in brooklyn, new york, gets employer insurance. Caller good morning. How are you this morning . I have some concerns. I am retired and i receive Health Insurance from my employee and for the past three years since i have been out, i have been paying more for my premiums. Lupus and cancer. When i go to the doctor, i have visit. 30 a each visit was 30. I had to not go to one appointment because i did not have the money. Some months i go without not going to some doctors appointments because i cannot afford to pay the deductible to visit the doctor. My medication prices have gone up. For one medication, i had to pay outofpocket and one year i paid 800 for outofpocket medication. He president has lied to us he has not fixed premiums. He has not fixed prescriptions. He is allowing his rich friends to pocket their money and it is not helping the people. I am retired, i worked over 30 years and i dont think i should about do i have to take my medicine today, ration it out, go to the doctor support appointment or is this more important . Host a story from the Associated Press on Lawrence Odonnell retracting a story on President Trump retracting yesterday a story about a suppose it russian tie to president Donald Trumps finances. Unfoldedc pullback quickly in the opening minute of the last word where 24 hours earlier he said a source told him Deutsche Bank documents showed russian oligarchs cosigned a loan application for trump and the president responding to that in a series of tweets, one of which says the totally inaccurate reporting is no different than the horrible, corrupt, and fraudulent fake news supporters have had to put up with for years. So bad for the usa. We get a call from florida, carl, good morning. Caller good morning. I am retired. I am getting medicare, and i am also getting insurance, 20 , from my employer. On what i wanted to comment was, for employers and employees, the company i work for, boeing, was selfinsured, so as a union man, i was tasked to find a way to reduce costs, out of a theory. We found that the union in new york, which builds the highrises, the teamsters union, had a high incidence of alcoholism due to the nature of the work. What the union did was find a way to reduce Health Care Costs. What they did with bids, competitively, for their whole union personnel, to doctors groups, they cut out paying the employer to selfinsure them because they could not get coverage for health care, Mental Health care. They were able to bid way lower than the company wanted to charge. That was one thing i wanted to mention. The second is, we are going to need some big action by government because the government is the only thing that can centralize our Health Care System. I think that if we had up ontos is for doctors if we had localtices for doctors in free clinics, if we established needand got people we more health care, but the problem is health care is too expensive. Host thanks. Terry is next up, baton rouge, louisiana. Hi there. Caller good morning. I want to address two things. Medicare medicaid dual coverage. That is not acceptable to 80 of the population because you have to have a very low income or be over 65 or disabled. So before everybody gets on the phone and tries to get this dual coverage, you are probably not going to get it. The second thing, i missed part of the program, so if somebody said anything about pharmacy benefit managers, they are the big money makers in the Health Care System. Everybody just jump on your computer and google it. It is a complicated system, and they are making more money than a lot of the pharmaceutical companies. Investigateneeds to the pharmacy benefit managers. Host lets hear from david, denver, who gets v. A. Insurance. Caller hey, bill. Host hey there. Caller i had tricare when i was in the air force. Tricare got me through a lifethreatening heart condition. I had to have a transplant. It was through no cause of my own. I was in exquisite physical condition. I served in the air force 30 years when the Heart Disease hit. 2. 5 years out of the transplant. Right after the transplant, i got hit with prostate cancer. That. Care got me through was there were calls, but i asked but they were reasonable but they were reasonable and i paid them. To squawkssman had thepush and was really on Veterans Administration to get the thing built. But it is a magnificent facility. Toproviders are responsive me. I get my primary care, i get dental, which because of my heart condition, you have to have dental. I get here and i ear and eye. Host all that is through the v. A. , david . Caller all of that is through the v. A. Most importantly, and this is what i want to say. The Government Support i had has allowed me to restore my health, so i ride my bike regularly. I work out regularly, and i am working. I am can. To put 5 i am contributing. 2. 5 years ago, i could not do that. I just wish other americans had the kind of access to health care i have had. If we can invest in ourselves, it makes a difference. You glad you called, glad are in Better Health as well. The conversation this morning, top issues in the campaign, focusing on health care. We are joined by maura calsyn and by Benedic Ippolito. Benedic ippolito will join us for a conversation on specifics of what the candidates are saying about health care, their proposals, coming up next on washington journal. Announcer watch book tv for live coverage of the National Books us book festival. Saturday, 10 00 a. M. Eastern. Our conversation with Ruth Bader Ginsburg on her book. Book, ther, his heartbeat of wounded knee. Consent, author of the british are coming and the founding director of the m. I. T. Center for intelligence, discusses his book, super minds. The National Book festival come alive saturday at 10 00 a. M. Eastern, on book tv, on cspan two. The u. S. Senate comes back into session on monday, september 9, with two important issues on their agenda passing federal spending bills and antigun violence legislation. But before senators return to washington, get a behindthescenes look at the senate with cspans History Program the senate conflict and compromise. Here is a preview. The very government under which we live was created in a compromise of mutual concession. Thomas jefferson questioned the need for a senate. Lets follow the constitution. The framers established the senate to protect people from their rulers. And as a check on the house. The fate of this country and maybe the world lies in the hands of congress and the United States senate. Senate conflict and using original interviews. We will look at the history, traditions, and roles of the u. S. Senate. Please raise your right hand. Sundays on cspan. Washington journal continues. Issues,r focus on 2020 health care, particularly, continues this money. Calsyn,oined by maura of the center for American Progress, and Benedic Ippolito, Research Fellow with the American Enterprise institute. We spent the first hour hearing from viewers on what they thought about improving the u. S. Health care system. So far we have heard a lot from democrats. The biggest item, the biggest is what is called medicare for all. Maura calsyn, how much traction does it have for Bernie Sanders and others who support medicare for all . Guest i think the first question is, what do viewers and people mean by medicare for all . There are a lot of different visions for that. Reallyhink that what is gaining traction among the democratic electorate, i think, is this idea that the Affordable Care act was a good starting point. How do we build on that . There are some people who do not have coverage. People have a lot of concerns about outofpocket costs. And the medicare for all as envisioned by senator sanders is one of the different puzzles out there. I think it is one of the different proposals out there. Is Bernie Sanders plan, there are other medical plans. Host politico had a piece on where the candidates stood on health care. At the time they had 23 candidates, but it has been winnowed down somewhat. All of them are for the expansion of the aca, expanding the Affordable Care act coverage. Ippolito, ben where do you see potential stumbling blocks . Is it the cost . Guest their first point that mara brought up is exactly the right point. What might the stumbling blocks be . At least at a high level, it pulls quite well amongst the democratic electorate however, one of the things that becomes quite clear is that once you Start Talking about and there tradeoffs, taxes per support really dwindled. What you see is that the majority of democrats certainly support medicare for all at a high level. However, that flips once you Start Talking about, what if you have to raise taxes . That is a long way of saying the plans that do less of those increases, less disruption to your own Health Insurance, are going to have higher traction, more traction. The first hour we talked about the potential for what the Trump Administration may do. They spent a lot of time limiting or preventing further expansion of obamacare, the Affordable Care act. The president promised a potential Health Care Plan before the election year. What might be in that . Mean, i dont think the president has a plan. I think that is a plan to the extent that there is one that comes out beforehand, i should say, the president has a plan and the plan is to repeal the Affordable Care act. In the texas versus the United States case. To the extent there is something that he thinks is going to replace it or that other experts think is going to replace it, i would imagine it would look Something Like the aca repeal bills that failed to get through congress two years ago. Some tweaks around the edges, but i think that i dont know how they are going to come up with anything else. Guest one of the things that has been clear since the last election, the election of donald trump, republicans have not had a unified vision of health care. Over the foreseeable future. But i think this experience is quite important for discussion. If we think about a world in which Bernie Sanders health care for all exists, there is one insurer and it is the federal government. Lets think about what the administration has done. The elimination of the individual mandate there is a lawsuit trying to undermine the entire apa we have seen medicaid work crime undermine the entire aca. We have seen medicaid work environments. What if somebody you dont like is in charge of that system . That speaks to one of these stumbling blocks. Choice is good in some cases. Host if polls are to be says he, joe biden supports expanding the Affordable Care act and adding a public option. How would that work . Guest essentially it would allow everybody who is in one of the acas marketplaces, the option to purchase a plan that is designed by and has designed by and has payment rates set by the federal government. The idea is that the Affordable Care act has competition in certain areas, but there are a lot of places where people especially do not qualify for help under the aca are finding it increasingly unaffordable to find insurance, in large part because of the actions of the Trump Administration. He would do two things. He would have that public option, which would be more affordable for people. He would also boost up the help that people get under the Affordable Care act. Ippolito and maura calsyn, we welcome your calls on health care. Campaign 2020, focus on issues continues this week on washington journal. Heres how to reach us and join the conversation. 7488001. Ns, call 202 2027488000. , 2027488002. S Kamala Harris introduced a plan, and Bernie Sanders had pushed back about the role of private insurers in how would senator harris plan work . Harris isator stumbling around on this issue and it speaks to the facts that there are challenges and tradeoffs to talk about. Planicare advantage style i think represents a much more plausible version of a medicare for all world. Mainly because medicare for all, if we look at the Medicare Program, what we have seen is a large gravitation toward the Publicprivate Partnership as opposed to a purely singlepayer system. We have seen this happen and Medicaid Programs as well. What she seems to have stumbled upon a little bit is actually i think a more plausible version of the world where basically the federal government says here, private insurers, here is the money, you figure out how to , youde these benefits figure out what patients actually want, and we will go from there. The details are incredibly important for that, conceptually i would say that is much closer to a more plausible solution. Host maura calsyn . Guest it goes back to your first question about what does medicare for all mean. Her plan is closer to the current medicare system. That is both public and private. What is important about her plan is that she would impose far stricter rules on private plans and make sure that they would get the benefit of a lot of influx of people but they would have to play by pretty strict rules in terms of who would be like that. Ings again, the devil is in the details. I think it is a good debate to have. Health care is such a huge part of our economy, that having iterations of people start thinking about these issues more and more is really important. We had a call or talking about the benefit pharmacy managers. Politico says 15 of the ondidates declared positions drug costs. Senator amy klobuchar, among others. It has also been an issue for President Trump, with some issues initiated to chacko to tackle drug costs. Where are we with that in the administration . Guest we have also seen Congress Make some headway. The finance committee voted out a bill, a bipartisan bill, that included a number of overhauls to programs like medicare, Prescription Drug benefits, aimed at trying to impose some market discipline on the drug prices. I think when you look at pulling , it is quite at polling drug prices are simply too high. The president has floated some rather unusual plans, at least for a republican, and the sense that he seems to be on board with importing drugs from other countries and using what is called International Reference pricing, saying we will pay what other countries pay, plus a little extra. Neither of those is a traditional conservative type plan. They are fought with challenges. An unexpectedaps turn for a republican president. Guest i think we will hopefully see something come out from the house of representatives, democratic leadership. What will be interesting is seeing the comparison between that proposal and what we have seen from the senate and the administration. I think one of the things that is really challenging is drug prices are really high for all americans, not just people with medicare. So how can policymakers, how can lawmakers really start to tackle the overall list price of these products and really bring some relief to all people regardless of whether or not they are enrolled in medicare . Host maura calsyn is with the center for American Progress. En ippolito the focus here is on health care. Your thoughts. Republicans, 2027488001. Democrats, 2027488000. Caller thank you for taking my call. I am celibate in my 40th year as an insurance agent. I am celebrating in my 40th year as an insurance agent. Once the bill got up to 5,000, the inch candidate the Insurance Company paid 100 of it. The cost for that plan was 400 a month. Today, because of democrats screwing it up with your foot of a character, the cost is 10,000. 15,000, 20,000 for my deductible and pain 2000, 3000, 4000 and paying 2000, 3000, 4000 a month. They screwed it up. Through f the math of the National Average in cost. They should give it to the states. Thats where it should be in the first place. Host thank you for your call. Guest i will go first. The Affordable Care act of the big things i would levy against the aca is it continued in american tradition, we subsidize health care explicitly and with a lot of money. However, we do much less to actually control the costs of health care. So i dont think it is a surprise that what we have seen is plans where the federal government basically says as long as prices keep going up, once you as an individual hit your maximum, the federal government absorbs costs forever. That is not a great system. We are trying to control the costs of health care. It is perhaps not surprising we have seen this. Host the caller from tennessee, one of the states that has not accepted the aca expansion of medicaid. What do you say to that . Guest i would say the caller is glossing over a lot of the problems that the individual Insurance Market had before the aca. It works perfectly well for people who were healthy, younger, who were not women, and the aca really did provide absolutely critical protection for people with preexisting conditions. I agree with ben and that the prices we are paying for these insurances are going up there and we talked about drug prices, but drug prices are one part of this. The cost of hospital care is going up, and we are seeing that. This is one of the challenges with any sort of there are vested interest in keeping prices high. Host lets go to beaufort, maine. Independent. Go ahead. Caller thanks for taking my call. I hate to be too simplistic, but it is my understanding that congressmen and senators get health care for life. If that is correct, i dont know. Ever want to have any changes, take that Health Care Away for life from the senators. Within a week, within a week, i promise you that there will be changes. The insurance money pays for these congressmen to get elected. They are the biggest lobbyists in the government, right . That is correct. Take thehe money away, Health Care Away from these clowns that are up there making theses of this and that, democrats destroyed health care. The republicans do not want to pay for nothing. I dont want to hear that crepe. Take their Health Care Away i dont want to hear that crap. Take their Health Care Away and you will see a difference tomorrow. Host good morning, from nashville. Caller i was curious about this. We pay for government and workers paychecks Third Military paychecks. Workers paychecks. Ella terry paychecks. Military paychecks. It is free. We are like the shoemaker that has no shoes. Our taxes go to pay their paychecks. Our taxes go to pay their health care. They get Free Health Care. The working class, the working poor, really, far and away known as the middle class, are supporting all of these other Peoples Health care who would not get it. I dont understand why people are not listening to Bernie Sanders. This is a nobrainer. We pay for everybody elses, but we dont get it. Why is that . Host we have heard from Bernie Sanders on the cost of his Health Care Plan. How much would that be, do you know . Guest independent experts on the right and left have estimated but that estimated that by taking all these healthcare costs and putting on the federal government, it would cost the government 30 trillion over 10 years. Guest which is not pocket change. What we would basically do is take all that money that people pay for premiums and collected as taxes. You still have to collect the money as taxes, and that is a massive stumbling block for any type of plan like his. That joehe reason biden envision Something Different is Bernie Sanders last campaign included a wish list of taxes to finance the medicare for all plan. That was scored as being about 17 trillion short over a 10year window. That says if Bernie Sanders campaign cant come up with a list of ways to pay this, were talking about something that is awfully hard to host Bernie Sanders, would he do away with the role of private Health Insurance . Guest yes and no. Nominally, yesterday says you cannot compete with the singlepayer plan the federal governments plan to however, we have seen some recent changes to his rhetoric where he started saying, yes, but unions, for example, if they negotiate for benefits as part of the contract, they can still do that aslong as they as long they wrap around. That speaks to the idea that we are not 100 comfortable with private insurance vanishing. I think his idea is that maybe benefits are not fully on board with medicare for all. Guest i think there is something in between the biden plan and center to sanders singlepayer, meaning everybody is under one plan. Those are plans like congressman delauro and congressman should caskey have a medicare plan for america. They have some of the same attributes of Kamala Harris more recent plan, but it we keep in place a private market for employers who want to offer insurance. Choice. Is to give them keeping the employers in the market also allows the federal cost to go down. So it is possible to actually get everybody automatically enrolled in a medicare for all plan and keep other actors in the system and dramatically reduce those costs. But it is really about those levers. Americans geton health care through their employer they also pulled the they pulled in favor of the 51 of those who they surveyed, 40 2 opposing it. On the party size, democrats, 72 favoring a singlepayer care plan, according to the Kaiser Family pole in july the Kaiser Family poll in july. Alexandria, virginia, next up on the democrats line. Have two comments. First of all, this 30th trillion dollar figure i think it is very misleading. Sanders said the cost of health care in the United States would be 50 trillion within the next 10 years. Be cost of his plan would from 30 trillion to 40 trillion. But a lot of big money is all ready being paid by the government. You have medicare and medicaid. Half the money for health care in this country is paid for i the government. Secondly, the center for American Progress is really it is really a place for future biden appointees. She keeps on talking about the public option. Is one realption in Washington State it is not working too well. Canada, has all, very effective system. It is very popular, 90 approval rating. Half ofta costs are what is in the United States. They do have some private insurance. It is very limited, very expensive. Medicare for all, it would be a very lucrative world for private insurance. This thing about a middleclass cut, tax hike, it is sanders offers options on how to pay for it. This person who talked about the middle class, the middle class is a broad range. His income is a lot more than the average income of a person in the middle class. The average worker earns 60,000. Host thanks for that. I will let you respond. You served at the department of health and human services, correct . Guest yes, i was a lawyer during the obama administration, and previously i was a career lawyer. I worked with both the bush appointees and obama and point tease and obama appointees. We have been talking a lot about the biden public option, and i think to the detriment of a lot that seconds in bucket, there are ways to get the universal coverage that are not a singlepayer option. That option does not get you there. If you have things like automatic enrollment, the plan is to default, that occur being the default, and then having people able to opt out of it. The organization that i work for that the caller mentioned, we have our own plan that again keeps the role for plight for private insurance. Than far more expensive the biden plan. Host he criticized Washington State, saying the plan was not working. I am not sure how expansive their public option plan is. Is there an example in the 50 states of a plan like that, similar to that, on a smaller scale that is working . The washington plan is really the upandcoming now. We have not really seen that yet. There are ways to design it and there is a myriad of different options. I think what the public option does and what the biden plan does is address a different set of people who are unable to get coverage through their employers and are having a hard time getting coverage in the marketplaces. It speaks to the patchwork we have here. Of the desire of a lot progressives, myself included, to have a far bigger role and a centralized system, whether or not that system includes private or public insurance. The president has talked about lower prices of drugs overseas in canada. Are there lessons to be learned from the canadian system, good and bad, for u. S. Politicians . Guest on the drug point, i found some of this discussion about drug importation it has this feature that frankly i think a pewter care a pure medicare for all plan has it is simple. We can finally find this whole thing down. However, the promise, there are these realities that are problematic. For example, the idea of importing drugs from canada. Canada is a country of 35 million people. Pfizer is not exactly to send drugs for 330 million americans to canada to have them shipped across the border. I dont know why that would be a priority for any federal or state legislator in the United States. Morethat strike you as a recent outcome . Canada has a system that in some ways has some of these types of federal arrangements that we have. But the over simplified versions host host . Up, republican line. Caller this is deborah in west chester, ohio. Host go ahead. Insurance. Focus is our focus really should be health. We spend approximately 500 inlion a year smokingrelated disease, trauma associate with driving under the influence, drugs, shooting one another, et cetera that cost will not go away regardless of the insurance choice we make. The only way to follow this is to make a change, one that changes our behavior. All Public Policies should focus on health. We should take and i realize this is i studied this for several years. Those particular costs associated with our choices, take it out of insurance, put it into a safe system that is a payroll deduction task tax for highcost, high risk choice. As a result, theyll cost each and everyone one of us about 100 to 150 a month to pay for those choices. It will educate the American Public to realize this is why your insurance premiums, or a part of why your insurance premiums, are so hot. Then what we would do, when you take that out of insurance, insurance costs go down. The other thing it would do is get the medical community to correct the correct incentive, which is wellness and general health. Right now we develop drugs for instance, for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. That cost 100,000 a year. Livingeps an individual an additional six months to a year. The key was to give people incentives to be healthier, not to smoke in the first place. As long as we you know, right now, care costs are 9,000 a year per person in the United States, and it is almost 18 of our gdp. No insurance, regardless of the plan, will ever solve the issue. The only thing we have the only thing that will solve the issue is changing our system toward health. You, deborah, and the issue of smoking. In this case, vaping, very much cases linkedwith to thc use. Heard one of the things i in her comments that is 100 right is that we do a good job of paying for things, regardless of, frankly, how good they are. So what you have is these reverse incentives where sometimes, with the apple she used, drugs, with the way medicare pays for drugs in hospital, it encourages drug manufacturers to focus on very expensive and potentially not very high value drugs. I would actually point to something going on on the hill right now in congress, where there are real bipartisan efforts to reform the way we pay for drugs in the Medicare Program, to try and give insurers the incentive to not have patients on these extremely high cost, relatively low value drugs and instead tilt the scale more toward the high value, lowercost drugs. Those of the kinds of change that if we want to get back to reality from a true overhaul in the system, those are the incremental changes that i think you can point to that are absolutely worth making. Host maura calsyn . Guest i think there is increasing focus on all of the issues, and i would go broader than smoking and those behaviors. There is a process of trying to think through what health wonks and medical professionals call social determinants. Of your health. Your housing, your access to healthy foods, how that impacts your health. There is a lot of interesting andes of policy debate Academic Research going on about that. We are starting to see a lot of insurers, including medicare, be the social determinants of health. Whyte,avid is in fort florida, on our republican line. Thank you. I am a retired registered nurse. On byare was never voted any republicans. The first thing that the house did was totatives did was to exempt themselves, their staffs, their family from obamacare. Totally clueless, utterly clueless. Premiums has skyrocketed. The amount of coverage for the average family has diminished,. Nd it is infuriating theacare has ruined Emergency Rooms. They have ruined the hospitals. Get the government out of health care. They know nothing. They have ruined basically everything that they touched when it comes to health care. Head you are shaking your there, maura calsyn. Go ahead. Guest i dont even know where to start. The caller is from florida, correct . Florida has not expanded medicaid. There are a lot of reasons why Emergency Rooms, especially in emergency areas, are struggling. The decision to not expand medicaid is one of the key reasons. I will leave it at that. Host you think when the plan was voted on and implemented by the obama administration, was the expansion of medicaid a key and integral part to that . Was it anticipated to being as big of a deal as it has become . When it was implemented, it was part of the law and it was not intended to be optional. It was a Supreme Court decision, the opt to opt the option to opt out and not expand. That had the result that there it really is a have and have not with the states. Host we are seeing data now between the states, mainly southern and western states . Guest yes, we are seeing it in correlations with a lot of rural hospital closures and also with the uninsured rates. Host ben ippolito . Guest at the start, i dont think youre clueless. [laughter] i think the Affordable Care obamacare, may have crystallized a few issues that were percolating under the that health fact care costs have been going up for a very long time. The cost of insurance is extremely expensive. Now it is up to for an average family plan, Something Like 25,000 a year. That is like buying a new toyota camry every year for your health care. That is a lot of money. In the obamacare market i think it is more salient, and to some extent that is good. Again, i am not the biggest obamacare supporter. Where i would hit it is that it kept going with this strategy of subsidizing but dont put any sort of over strains on the cost side. What we see in obamacare is an ex post inversion of that. I dont think it invented that problem, though. Onre are profound influences everything from the Obamacare Exchanges to the amount of takehome pay people have at the end of the day. Host the average annual 6,896 for single coverage. 19,616 for family coverage. From tennessee, the republicans line. Caller can you hear me . Host we can. Caller the Affordable Care act, it was supposed to be where everybody had to participate. That technicality got left off the end result of all the sick people being the ones who got involved and they made the last i have medicare and i was recently in the hospital. An itemizeduest bill. Medicare was billed 10,000 for a ct scan that takes three minutes. I had a similar mri that takes 45 minutes. They are only 4000. They also billed for two applications for oxygen i never received. They build for 1700 worth of oral medications, like 20 and 40 per pill. There was no way i was given that because i could not have anything to drink, not even ice chips. There is no way i could swallow these pills with nothing to drink. So the government is good about doing operations for programs with little oversight. They review less than 1 of medicare claims. There is so much fraud, it is sickening. I had to request the itemized bill, and i called medicare. They did not seem they said to call the hospital and tell them, then get back with them. Medicare, when they added that, it states that medicare cannot even negotiate with the pharmacies, and that is unreal. None of the people and medicare they have the negotiation power to keep prices much lower than what they are paying. Host thanks. Maura calsyn . Iller i think guest think what the caller is discussing goes to a lot of issues we are talking about today and prices. That hospital, the other providers, the prices keep going up so that it is why the insurance keeps going up. Most people with medicare, unlike the caller, do not see that necessarily. I think that it also goes to a lot of political pressure that a lot of congress is seeing already. There is a debate right now about private billing. It is the exact same issue, where there are a lot of profits, there are excess profits in the system that hospitals and doctors are charging. Theoon those are at risk, lobby kicks into high gear with a lot of dark money. That is one of the big challenges we keep talking about with any reform, and it is a large part of why the aca includes some of those pieces. Host modern health care talked about there are several hearings on medical bills, particularly bipartisan issues. Surprise medical billing legislation is threatened now by provider lobbying. You said it is dark money. Is that what we are referring to . The lobby lobbying against some of that legislation . Guest yes. You have ads with friendly names like patient provider partnership. I am probably just naming a group that is perfect the fine, i dont know. You see a lot of ads that have a lot of scare tactics about how any decrease in payment, to the system, is going to suddenly have terrible effects. Scare tactics have always been very effective. Host we have been playing some of the comments of candidates, including President Trump. I want to show the comments of judge and his proposal on of Pete Buttigieg and his proposal. We have been talking about Mental Health and addiction. No longer can this be treated as a marginal or specialty issue because it affects all of us. All of us. We have to act. [applause] forcing parity so that Health Insurance companies actually have to treat Mental Health conditions and provide Mental Health visits just as they would the physical health. It means training our Police Officers and teachers on how to recognize signs of the Health Issues, but also equipping them with a place to send people when they do identify with those officials by making sure we have the providers we need when it comes to Mental Health. It means building up our defenses as a country, our defenses to the risk posed by Mental Health and addiction and suicide risk. It is where there ought to be a three digit number linking to the National Suicide prevention hotline so it is that easy to tell somebody where to go. And it is time to break the silence that has people struggling with Mental Health issues for addictions, thinking they are alone. One in five americans will experience a Mental Health challenge. So people experiencing that need to know and their loved ones, too, that there is nothing to be ashamed of. We need to talk about these issues as openly as we would talk about cancer or a twisted ankle or diabetes because lives are on the line. If we get this right. If you just do the math on deaths through alcohol, drugs, and suicide come and look at what will happen in the next 10 years if we do not do something, if we act, if we cut by have the deficit of despair. We will save one million lives in this country. How can we not act and do that . Lets make it happen together. Host ben ippolito of the American Enterprise institute. He talked about a lot of things, but one was forcing parity. Why are Mental Health issues seemingly treated differently under Health Care Plans than regular health care . It is an interesting question. I think it is probably the fact that health care came about and we cannot really observe things that are Mental Health issues. Was i used to say i this is an issue that is near and dear to my heart. If you think about what help means, one easy way to think about it is a simple question how did you feel today . Whether it was a physical problem or a mental problem, it doesnt matter. If you wake up in the morning and it doesnt feel bad, that is a problem. That is what we are trying to get out to get at. The idea that Mental Health ought to be treated with some sort of similar passion, physical health makes a ton of sense. Right now might be a good moment to really hammer that home. Completely. Ee two things we need to increase, increase the number of Mental Health providers, especially in rural areas. And explore ways to do that, perhaps by loan forgiveness and things like that. Also we need to make sure that Insurance Companies and all insurance systems including medicaid and medicare are paying appropriate amounts. In some cases we are talking about overpayments, in places where there is too much money in the system. This is an area where there needs to be more money and more incentive for people to accept medicare and medicaid as private paying patients. Host in your case, as an attorney, a Research Fellow at the American Enterprise institute, what first attracted you to health care . Guest in some cases, everything. I am an economist. As a normal citizen, it is hard to think about all the issues that are more relevant. It is 20 of our gdp. If we have some of the biggest programs in the country to care come medicaid all centered around health, but as a citizen, what is more fundamental to your ability to do everything we study in economics work and all that it is health. At the end of the day, is at the root of everything i care about. Me it started well before i got to high school or college. Seeing my grandparents in the of myal, and one grandfathers was a doctor who i never met, but i had always heard about the work he had done. Again, we all we all have interaction with the Health Care System. We all know people who have had health care interactions every single day. Also started in college during the Clinton Health debates, so i found that interesting. Again, it is so fundamental to every other policy issue, and everything about our country. Host lets go to david in michigan, on our democrats line. Caller hi, good morning. A couple of comments. I would just like to give a warning to the country in general. Of the looming Health Care Crisis coming. One, you have an increasingly aging population. Two, a number of physicians are leaving medicine. I say that because i am a physician myself. The problem with health care, and maybe i need to change that, it is not health care anymore. Is the business of health. There are lots of people feeding at the trough, whether it is the Insurance Companies, pharmaceutical companies, et cetera a lot of people are taking money out of the system. As the caller mentioned, we are looking at health care representing 18 to 20 of gdp. My proposal is that the whole system be scrapped. The condition of health care is such that we are putting bandaids on a leaking roof. Imagine if you would if we used a model that was similar to the military, where we all pay our taxes, we contribute to the military, the military takes wellbeinge common that is not the correct word. Safety and our defense. Imagine if we used a system like that in health care where we all paid into it, we are not worried about what premium we paid. Health care is very simple. It is simple to take care of patients. There are too many patients incentivized who make the system difficult. It is very easy to take care of patients, to take care of the physical and Mental Health of our population. It is not difficult. But we have too many people who are incentivized to make it difficult. As i listen to your panelists, i hear a lot of words but i dont hear a lot of solutions. I am arguing for a very simple and simplified Health Care System. And may be a model like that is something for the future. It is a big ask. Host any response for david . Guest it sounds like the Bernie Sanders singlepayer for all solution. Were honestly, if i writing Campaign Messages for democrats, which i am not, but if i was, i would emphasize that point. The simplicity of a singlepayer plan. That does not mean it is easy to do or is the best plan. I dont think it is personally, but we have it simple, but you still have to overcome the challenges that come with that plan. You still have to raise all that money to pay for it. You have to design the plan and be responsive what people want. Sympathetically agree with the idea that there are places in our Healthcare System where we are not even remotely close to as efficient as we could be. That does not mean that private addingr drugmakers are zero value to the system. There is a middle ground, and i think if we think about realistic policies that do not involve blowing everything up and replacing it with the v. A. , we have to think about how to does Public Policy how does Public Policy give those private actors the right incentives to move toward a more efficient model . Host you can send us a tweet cpspanwj. One for you, ben ippolito. Guest this is one of the biggest issues in pharmaceutical policy right now. The traditional drug is a small molecule drug and is easy to make. That means the drug loses its exclusivity the fda gives. We get very cheap generic drugs. There are new drugs that are very exciting that could treat all sorts of various issues. ,ut they are much more complex literally costing hundreds of millions of dollars, so even though you know how to make them, it is expensive. The question is, is our current regulatory set up appropriate for these new expensive drugs. The question is ultimately going to come down to a simple one, but a very challenging one, which is how much innovation do we want to encourage here, versus how much do we want to just hammer down these prices via government fiat and exclusivity runs out . I think that is a question the current Regulatory Environment should not be giving up on yet, but we are very much in the early years of this new world. It will be incredibly important to watch. Guest i think it is important to point out that any way of getting the new approach here being put in place by the Affordable Care act, it is one of the many pieces of the Affordable Care act that if a awayit would completely it im sorry, to not put it away but to repeal it. Any inability to have these drugs, it speaks to the fact t the Affordable Care act it is now part of the infrastructure of how we do health care in this country. Maryland, ontown, the republican line. Caller good morning. I have a couple of comments. First of all, back to the gentleman, the physician who talked about blowing up the system. I dont think we necessarily need to blow up the system, but anyone in government, has anyone in the government thought of combining medicare, medicaid, the v. A. , the received golden Health Care Plan that the congress and senators have . Into one system . And then you obviously save money by not having three different administrators. Callers ago,eral thelady that talked about little the middle class that was covering all of these whyrams, and yet she said dont we get our health care . Well, i am befuddled by all these people that think when they get medicare like me, or that theyor whatever, are getting it for free. It does not cost it costs me about 4500 a year for medicare with my supplemental and drug program. So nothing is free. Anyway host appreciate that. Is there efficiency to be gained by combining healthcare plans . Has anybody looked into that . Guest there has been a lot of research. There are a lot of plans out there, like the medicare for america plan, that combines all of the pieces into a new medicare type plan. And keeps some part of the Employer Market on its own. There are lots of ways to have different efficiencies. For example, if you have the same rules about how much everybody pays, you can save a lot of money. Japan does that. They have thousands of individual plans, but the administrative costs are superlow. Host it is interesting, when we do these talks about health care, sometimes the discrepancy in the service and where they get that coverage is so great. Youyeah, the v. A. Almost seem to love it or hate it. Some people like the system because i think it is fair to say it is the closest to a singleparent plan. Has issues related to weight taman quality. Those are major issues. Crazying, it is not a idea at all. The idea that we might see some people streamline the fragmented system where we have medicare and medicaid and so on. If we were going to do that, we would want to implement exactly what medicare and medicaid are doing right now, which is giving insurance a pot of money and saying here is all you get, you figure out how to cut these costs. From david inar los angeles, california. Go ahead. Caller good morning. This is a very telling conversation that is going on between the two of you, the two guests you have today. It is one by someone who does not have a particular dog in this hype. For example, undermining solutions that have brought forth the Bernie Sanders plan. It would seem wise if we were to have someone from Bernie Sanders medicare for all on there arguing his point as opposed to these people doing it because they both have an agenda. They both are into maintaining the status quo. Quo. The money isnt the problem. You hire people like your guests to perpetuate and maintain no solution to keep the same madison play. Madness in place. Are you with me . Host we are. Caller anytime youre dealing lets say point of view, have Bernie Sanders on their to discuss this. These two people are being paid by their various whoever the donors are. Host we have had Bernie Sanders iowa statecently the fair. Maura calsyn . Guest i work for the center of American Progress and all of our donors are online if the caller wants to take a look. I think it is inaccurate to say i in my colleagues have not put forward transformational universal coverage proposals. We happen to keep certain people in the system. We think we have a great Medicare Program and people will vote for their feet and we see what happens over time. Fair we have our guests on, many of our guests that are policy experts in health care. Guest i dont begrudge anyone for liking Bernie Sanders. Its another option. I think it is wrong to say we are misrepresenting some of the challenges. That are practical issues those kind of plans have. If Bernie Sanders wants to propose i would actually raise the money they would need to do that plan, i would love to see that genuinely. But they cant do that. It is hard for me to sit here loses 17plan that trillion over 10 years. Host evelyn from tennessee. Caller thank you for taking my call. I wanted to say i have great insurance. I have medicare. I have tricare. Inad a heart attack december. Ive had two heart attacks. I have my same cardiologist i had 10 years ago. I had excellent care. I did not have to pay anything. Everything was paid for me by medicare and tricare for life. A month later i had a g. I. Bleed. Im almost 93. I had a g. I. Bleed. I had to go back in there and stay six more days. I had excellent care all the time. I had all my nurses and doctors were just wonderful. Go, i as my prescriptions get those from express scripts. Dollars even seven if i did take three pills a day, i can get that medicine for seven dollars. Host glad you are with us this morning from tennessee. Our guests Benedic Ippolito and maura calsyn. We are talking about health care. To the 2020ahead campaign, if you had a project, what do you think there were public and plane will be in terms of health care . What might be in the final democratic platform . See ithink we will depends on who the nominee is. It is going to be a stark difference between the republicans and democrats. It comes down to democrats, whoever the nominee is having a plan to lower the costs for people struggling right now and expand coverage. I think President Trump will have a hard time coming up with a plan that doesnt raise cost for people increase the number of uninsured, and there is still the texas lawsuit out there. Host what you think President Trumps plan looks like . I would bet he is probably the nominee. It will focus on things like Prescription Drugs and less on the Affordable Care act. It is a minefield to overturn the aca. I thinksual to say but he will be talking a lot about doing things like importing drugs from other countries, importing the pricing systems of other countries. Proposed that for Medicare Part d. There will bek more emphasis on those kind of things and for some of the reasons that maura is alluding to. Host maura calsyn and Benedic Ippolito, thank you for being with us. We continue hearing from you on the changes to the system. We will look at other items popping up in the news this morning as washington journal moves on. We will hear from you next. Labor day weekend on American History tv, saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on lectures in history, a discussion about Abraham Lincoln and native americans. Sunday at 4 00 p. M. On real america, the 1950 army film invasion of southern france. Monday, labor day at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, the commemoration of the 400 anniversary of virginias first General Assembly held in jamestown. Explore our nations passed on American History tv, every weekend on cspan3. Americanslate 1850s, generally trust of congressman but not congress as an institution. Nor did congressman trust each other. Many congressmen were routinely armed, not because they were eager to kill their opponents, but out of fear their opponents might kill them. History professor and author Joanne Freeman be our guest on in depth. Her latest book is the field of blood. Her other titles include the essential hamilton, and affairs of honor. Join in with your phone calls, tweets and facebook questions. Had 9 00 p. M. Eastern on afterwards, in his book the immoral majority, ben howe examines if even villages evangelicals are choosing political power over morals. It contributes to keeping a system in place that takes accountability out of the system. To brings an easy way in Something Like evangelicalism or any other faith and use that as a way to get votes, which seems like the worst possible wake you can do that. Watch book tv every week and on cspan2. Washington drought continues. Host washington journal continues. Host health care is one of the key issues of campaign 2020. What would you do to change the u. S. Health care system . For those of you who get the aca, 202 7488000. For those of you who are employer insured, 202 7488001. If youre on medicare or medicaid, 202 7488002. For the uninsured, 202 7488003. Back to the focus on Campaign Issues. Where does health care right . According to real clear Opinion Research, 36 of those polls say health care was their top issue. Lets hear from bill in houston. Go ahead. Caller good morning. I am a medicare patient. I recommend the country illuminate Social Security and pump that money into Free Health Care for life. Rather than waiting until you are 60 or 70 years old to get your benefits, you get them throughout your whole life. That is what i would propose. Host the same payment if youre an employee in your paying your monthly Social Security taxes going to your health care . Caller correct. You can buy private insurance if you want but you get your benefit right away rather than waiting until you are 60 or 70 years old. Host the line says you are on medicare. How long have you been using medicare . Caller two years. Host youre happy with it . Caller i dont ever go to the doctor. Im fairly healthy. I dont take any medicine at all. Host may that continue that way. Mike getsraska, employer insurance. Caller how is it going today . I am calling to correct a misconception a couple people have called in earlier in the day about congressional insurance and their employees. They are in the Affordable Care act. They get an allowance per month for their plan, which is kind of high. They are enrolled in the Affordable Care act. I just wanted to clear that up. Host bernie in lawrence, kansas. He is on medicare. Caller good morning. I am on medicare. However i get most of my health care at a va hospital which i am satisfied with. It is of surprised my understanding it is one of the most costeffective, highestquality Health Care Systems in the world. Have you ever had the author on who wrote the book best care anywhere . Host i cant say for sure. We have had plenty of programs focusing on the v. A. , in particular v. A. Health care but i dont know if we had that author on. Caller ok. I am satisfied with the v. A. System. It is government employees. They mostly belong to unions. It is very integrated with computerized and computerized. It just seems like an outstanding Health Care System. Host you said you get some of your care through the v. A. And you are happy with your service in the lawrence area. From kingston, georgia, also on medicare. Caller good morning. I am on medicare. People are really communicating well the fact that being on medicare is not free. You are paying for it. It does not cover everything. You have to have a supplement or pay cash out of pocket. It is not a free program. I dont know that the average person considers that when they hear people talking about providing a medicare plan for all. Thatt wanted to comment on so people understand it is something they are paying for. Host on medicare for all and issues like that, we have talked a great deal this morning about that. There is an ad you may be seeing in your tv markets from a group that is sponsored by the Senate Majority leader mitch mcconnell. It is opposing medicare for all. Here is a look at it. [video] \ how long will you wait for care . In other countries patients wait weeks, even months for treatment. Everyone forced into the same government plan no matter how serious. Medicare for all would eliminate private insurance for 180 million people. You and every american waiting in the same governmentrun plan. How long will you wait . Host following up on that, robert says lets have Bernie Sanders person on. System cost 30 trillion for 10 years in the forprofit system. Mark says, didnt california and massachusetts try a singlepayer system and it was too costly . How can a country afforded . We hear from william and louisa, kentucky. In luisa, kentucky. Years andworked 47 paid into Social Security, paid into my state program. In the meantime when i went to get my Social Security i could not get it all. I have little glaucoma. I went to get help and called it my insurance and they will not pay for my surgery so i have to keep taking medicine that is costing me. Would startongress giving back some of the money they stole even reagan said Social Security would never go broke. They start giving back some of that money like our president is now. He dont take a paycheck. Everyone one of them is filthy rich. Es all thebriberi time and pass bad bills. We need to get some private peoplepeople on it, some that never worked should not be in congress. Host you get your insurance from your employer. Are you happy with that . What would you change in terms of your insurance or the u. S. Insurance Health Care System . Caller but what i change . What would i change . Give the money back and that we would not have the problems like we have now. Host front page of the New York Times focusing on fires worldwide. The earth heats. The amazon basin is ablaze. In central africa, vast stretches of savannah are going up in flames. Arctic regions in siberia are burning at a historic pace. The resilient fires have grown into a fullblown International Crisis the brazilian fires that have grown into a fullblown International Crisis, they are just one area or wildfires are burning around the world. They are spreading to places where fires were rarely previously seen. It is raising fears that Climate Change is exacerbating the danger with potter and dryer temperatures that will continue promoting the potential for fire. They describe the risk of large, uncontainable fires globally if Warming Trends continue. I will show you a map of some of those fires around the world from the New York Times and their extensive peace on this today piece on this today. Hot springs, california and donald. Yeah, im retired on Social Security. I got off pain meds because the doctor was charging me 1500 a visit. It was paid for by insurance. Whereycontin and fentanyl 1300 and 1400 a month. Its not fair for doctors to charge that much or for pharmacy companies. They cost a little bit of money and they are charging thousands of dollars a year. Pricestop paying doctors and lets set paying pharmacies. We have to realize there is something called the hippocratic oath that should be followed. Everybody can go. Socialized medicine for sure. ,f people want to pay more let them pay thousands if they have it. Wey dont have it should be charged according to what our income is. Host bill in new haven, connecticut, also getting his insurance via medicare. You are on the air. Medicare but im fortunate my wife works for yale university. Because she worked for yale, they cover what medicare doesnt cover. If we didnt have that, we would have a problem. I think medicare and medicaid is necessary. Actually thert Affordable Care act with improvements. That is why joe biden will be the one that can do that. All the stuff, the ideas out there now are great but it will never get through congress and never get through the senate. We already have some through the senate. It took 100 years to get. Now we need to improve on that. We have my medicaid, my medicare and all of americans who have retired like myself and that paid into the system. One other point about Social Security. I believe that was president johnson to pay for the vietnam war, he rated Social Security. That money was never paid back. It should be paid back with interest. Host that is bill in new haven, connecticut. Here was what some people are thinking about employerprovided insurance. A majority of americans have employerbased Health Care Insurance and dont mind if it changes to medicare for all as long as they can keep their current coverage. The whole coming out of out in august. Ding said they would be fin switching would not mind switching as long as it does not affect their coverage. That highlights how americans are generally satisfied with employerbased coverage. The respondents attitude reflects a dynamic that candidate to champion it are counting on. If it provides equal or more conference of benefits, americans are likely to support it. Lets hear from sharon in connecticut who gets her insurance fo through the Affordable Care at. Caller good morning. I have a couple of things to say. As a single mom and the health that she wasnt buying Health Insurance for a long time, ive had the insurance bought before the aca, i bought the aca and now im looking at medicare for myself in the nottoodistant future. Them, what the aca did for me and my family was it raised the minimum requirements for insurance as well as preexisting conditions and keeping your kids on until the age of 26. I think that was one of the most important things for me and my family. I had the experience of buying substandard independent insurance and finding out i really did not have much insurance at the time through those programs. My other thought on this system is with medicare you have the hospital portion which is basically paid for by your taxes. Partyou have the option of im not in it yet, but part b or the advantage program, epee o pay on for a minimal about a money. Why cant we have a universal system to pay for hospital through taxes . We can have a public option program. You can have individual insurance programs. They all must meet a certain standard of coverage. The only component is how to keep those costs down. I think there has to be a cost, and with the drugs. They are super important. If we can do the negotiating with drugs, you could offer people choices that they would be comfortable with as long as they are affordable. Host how comfortable would you meant higher payroll taxes to pay for this . Personally im a proud taxpayer. As long as taxes go to pay for things that work and things that provide for everyone, im not one that just think about what i need and i would be happy to pay taxes for a better universal Health Care System. Everyone is going to be healthier, more productive, and your family is not going to fall through the cracks. I dont know. I dont have a problem paying taxes for a good system of anything. Host thank you for calling. I wanted to show you an ad in the Joe Biden Campaign focusing on health care and his personal story about that. [video] Vice President biden i was sworn in x to a hospital bit. My wife and daughter were killed in a car crash. Lying in the bedroom with my two surviving little boys. I could not imagine what it was like if we did not have the health care they needed immediately. 40 years later, one of those little boys, my sun be son beau was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given only months to live. I cant fathom what wouldve happened if the Insurance Company said for the last six months of his life you are on your own. The fact of the matter is health care is personal to me. Obamacare is personal to me. When i see the president try to tear it down and start over, that is personal to me too. We have to build on what we did because every american deserves Affordable Health care. I am joe biden and i approve this message. Host it is our focus on Campaign Issues on washington journal up until 10 00 eastern this morning. Your thoughts on health care. What would you do to improve it in the u. S. . 202 7488000 for those of you soet your insurance the the Affordable Care act, 202 7488001. Medicare and medicaid, 202 7488002. For the uninsured, 202 7488003. Earnestine is it oak hill, west virginia. Caller yes, i am. 21ave been on medicare years. I am satisfied with the medicare. Against Affordable Care medicare for all. Some comments from people who live in scandinavia and england. Theere talking about the candidates were talking about increasing your salary or taxes. From what i understand from the that it is basically your pay. You get less pay for all the things the government provides for free. I had occasion to talk to a physician where i do work occasionally. His sister lives in england. She waited almost three years for a knee exam test. Act over an ultrasound. Three years a ct or an ultrasound. Under universal health care you dont have a lot of the people on dialysis. You dont have the hip replacements, the shoulder replacements, the knee replacements. If you have them, you wait for years for them, or for anything cardiac. For basic limited health care. Since i have been in health care , i have learned it is the individual who is responsible for their own health care. I have seen patients who do not the recommendations from their physicians. In thet hear them auxiliary people who help the physician take care of that patient. As long as patients are not ignore the, who nonsmoking aspect of their care cardiacs who take high sodium food and dont do things and dont take their medicines, diabetics who dont their to people taking insulin and following a good diet and losing weight. As long as people do not follow their instructions we do have a higher Health Care Costs because these people come into the times thatd greater the person who is responsible for their own health care. I am not for the universal health care. Are puttinges forward to the nation. Host some political news. President trump visiting california. He will visit a favorite liberal target. He has a midseptember fundraising visit in the San Francisco bay area, in addition to Beverly Hills and san diego. The president will be in North Carolina on monday. 9, i had of two congressional races. One of those races last night, the candidates part in their first and only debate of the redo election. This is the ninth district redo onction that is happening september 10. One more political news from the u. S. Senate, Johnny Isakson of georgia will be resigning at the end of 2019. N announcement yesterday. He is facing Health Challenges and the governor will appoint someone to replace senator isaacson. He is planning to resign at the end of 2019. Linda is next from festus, missouri. Go ahead. Caller yes, i am on medicare. I agree with the lady several calls ago. Medicare is not free. I think Everybody Needs to understand that. Andb, theye part a 135 out of my Social Security for me to have medicare. Plus i bought a supplemental plan because you have a 20 cap. If you dont have some kind of medicare supplemental plan, you are going to be responsible for hospitalu go into the to have something done. If you dont have a supplement to plan. If medicare refuses to cover something, youre supplement the plan will not cover it either. I just wanted to make that clear. It is not free. That i neverng is understood if we are talking about the wellbeing. While your eye care in your dental care, especially when you get older is not included in medicare. When i was an individual that headed to my company. I had great eye Care Coverage and great dental coverage. I see that you wear glasses and Bernie Sanders wear glasses and elizabeth warned wears glasses and so many people do. Glasses isod pair of very expensive. Your dental is even more expensive. Discuss whyd anyone those have been excluded and are separate. I have to have insurance for that. If you get to the point where you have cataracts, medicare will pay for the surgery for that and im not there yet and not likely to be. Charlotte. Caller thank you for taking my call. Im on medicare myself. We as americans need to take the majority of the Health Problems in our country is from our diet. Responsible,e more the situation would not be where it is right now. Right now it is being held by ransom. You can have it the whole year and never use it and you were still paying the same premium. Believe is we have to have more responsibility in the foods we eat. Other countries dont have the same problems we have here. That is pretty much my comment. You get to eat better, exercise, be more aware. Host here is a view from overseas on twitter. This one from marcia. We need the british to come to america and show us how to do Proper Health care like to do with the National Health service. Having lived in Great Britain for 15 years, i still marvel at the daily miracle of health care for everyone regardless of ability to pay. From the New York Times, citizenship no longer automatic first some born abroad. Born to Service Members other federal employees will no longer be granted automatic citizenship under a Trump Administration policy that could take effect in october. Parents of these children will have to apply for citizenship on the childrens behalf before they turn 18. A u. S. According to citizenship and Immigration Services policy released on wednesday. The policy appeared to be aimed at military families who have not lived in the u. S. For years. The change would not affect children of families for the least one parent who is an american citizen and has lived in the United States for at least five years. It was unclear how many families the change would affect. Our topic as we continue until 10 00 eastern, thoughts on campaign 2020 on health care. How would you change the u. S. System . You 7488000 for those of forget their through the aca. 202 7488001 if you are employer insured. Medicare and medicaid, 202 7488002. For the uninsured, 202 7488003. Tricare in destin, florida. Welcome. Caller how are you doing this morning . I get tricare. Im retired military. I researched this a few years ago. I think pretty much everything applies except for one change. I wrote a quick little book on this and other political stuff. What i found was the biggest cost was administrative. The second was trying to protect against tort reform from civil lawsuits and such. Ie administered of costs, think trump is trying to address this with where you have the clear pricing set up. Honestly, you are removing a gallbladder. There was no difference between hospitals. The procedure is pretty much the same. Pretty much what it is going to cost. If your having a heart attack on the table, i get it. Thats an additional cost. The argument is between hospitals and the insurance going back and forth. Ive had this discussion with other people and they say we want a federal health care. Im not a big fan of the feds running anything. The budget would just explode. It is not worth it. Trillion with the last two guests and that is way too much. I think private industry can do better. Tricare is run by humana, a private company. We actually have insurance through them. They pushed it over them. I wish the v8 we do the same thing and get rid of a lot of these hospitals and say we will cover these injuries. V. A. And tricare is different. Tricare for life is for those who retire. The v. A. Covers those who are in for 3, 10, 19 years and did not retire. The v. A. Only covers what you receive on duty. Thats it. If you busted your knee, they cover your knee only. Thats it. I only use the tricare. I dont think i should be able to take v. A. It takes money out of them and. The guys really needed host what do you go for to the v. A. For if you dont need to . Caller i dont go to the v. A. I only use my tricare. , they are spread pretty thin. The people do a great job, dont get me wrong. The practitioners degrade staff. I talked to friends of mine. My brothers use it. They are really good folks. The problem is the administrative part. Too much red tape. Host you mentioned he wrote a book. What is the title . It covers the top 10 issues in 2016. One of them was health care. We are america a voice from the silent majority. It is down and dirty and quick. It is written like a white paper. I highlight the issue. I give you some facts and give you a conclusion. Host did you self publish it . Through create space through amazon. Host you can get it through amazon . Caller yes, and it is on kindle as well. I just want people to get little knowledge. Host we hear from larry and stone mountain, georgia, who gets insurance through his employer. Caller yes, sir. Ive just got one question i would like to ask. I work for the u. S. Postal service for 30 years, and with my military time i had 33 years. I had a catastrophic accident and had to retire before i got to the retirement age. I retired around 58. When i retired they told me to apply for medicare when i became 65. I applied for medicare when i turned 65. You work for the government and you dont pay Social Security and medicare. Fromd into medicare 1966 until i retired. When i applied they said i did not qualify. Enoughid it did not have paying into Social Security to draw in. What happened to the money i was paying into medicare . Nobody can explain that to me. I just want somebody to answer that for me please. Host how old are you . Caller i am 78 now. But i stillv. A. Have got the insurance the government gave me. They told me to apply for medicare and i was declined. Host i hope you find an answer. What theoking at president ial candidates have had to say about health care. Here is republican candidate bill wells at the iowa state fair. [video] i dont think we need to repeal the Affordable Care act. I think there is too much government in it by far. Government is deciding everyone has to have a cadillac plan, deciding on the operation that has to be immediately available. That drives up the cost of health care dramatically. 20id at 20 people billion people, which is 20 million people, but it needs to be, in the hands of the individual which is what i think about everything. I think we should having taxadvantaged Health Settings account so people can put aside money with big Tax Advantages like a 401k or a Retirement Plan to store up the nuts against the winter. I want to chevrolet play, dont the cadillac plan. People do it every day of their lives. Some people when a big deductible because it only to pave so much of front. Other people know they are struggling to put food on the table so they cant take a hit. They have to have no deductible so they pay more upfront and let them make those decisions. That is the direction i would go in more than tinkering with the Affordable Care act. That is a profound analytical tool but it goes in the of more government. Host front page of the wall street journal the headline. The u. S. Needs allies. Former defense secretary jim mattis resigned from the Trump Administration late in 2018. My concrete solutions and strategic advice, especially keeping faith of our allies a lot of resonated. He offers the explanation from his book. Until now he had remained largely silent since leaving office amid tensions with President Trump. Later they write he also expresses in blunt terms his concern that the current Divisive Political climate is harming the country. What concerns me most as a military man is not our external adversaries, it is our internal divisiveness. We are dividing into hostile tribes, fueled by emotion and mutual disdain that jeopardizes our future. Instead of rediscovering our Common Ground in finding solutions. We are all better than the current political politics. The excerpts from that forthcoming book are posted at the wall street journal website. Back to our conversation about health care. What needs to be changed. We go to greensboro, maryland next and hear from gabriel. Caller good morning. Thank you for having me. I am 32 years old. I have medicaid. When i wasexcited able to get it through the Affordable Care act. I agree with the caller. She was talking about dental. That if ourief government actually cared about dentals health then coverage, dental insurance, working on teeth and making sure there are no cavities in the aluminum and these things that oldschool dentist do that they updated, that or we they focus on your teeth and occlusion. Such it is the biggest part of your health. If our government was concerned, which they are not really our country is set up there has to be a start about a Homeless People and lowerclass. In order for all that to be in play im a sociology major, by the way. I graduated in 2010. I Study Systems and everything. Dental insurance is the most important. Doctors. Holistic i have an uncle who is a holistic doctor and i see a holistic doctor. Of course underneath the there is zeroe tolerance for many holistic approach. For any holistic approach. Do insurance has a lot to with money and profit from the pharmaceutical companies. If you look in the rural areas, like last election season, all the candidates were going to run to the rural areas of america. They were noticing one thing. So many young people were addicted to these pills, fentanyl, oxycontin, xanax. That is because of the prophet in greed. That is the problem, the paradox of this whole thing. That is what people are not understanding. True Health Insurance, true healing comes from a holistic approach. That is the truth. Until we get there, all this medicare, all this stuff, it is not going to work. Host we will move on to robert in el centro, california, to get his insurance through his employer. Who gets his insurance through his employer. Caller i have a unique experience. I live eight miles from the border in mexico. I am 61 and ive gone through bouts of no insurance, military insurance and then getting out and having employer insurance. I have been through several plans. Experimenting. I go to mexico for all my health care. Care. Opinion it is better i can get anything done 24 7, everything from lab work to m. R. I. s to every thing within two or three days when i go down there. I am paying right now for myself and one dependent. My share is 100. I work for the state. They gave me an option where you can opt out the paying into the insurance. I opted up because i live close to mexico and the hospitals i need to use our 100 miles away. It was more of a convenience. Pay 100 for two. I bought an Insurance Plan in mexico. Companiesed by u. S. With an affiliate in mexico. I dont want to give names out. I pay, the employer pays, but is a very low cost. I get reimbursed. If i exceed 100 for the cost in copays, which a copay down there for me is 10 to see a doctor. Pay i just got. Ick and i needed an exam shot. Five dollars for a it all adds up. If i accumulate one under dollars worth of expenses in a year 100 worth of expenses in a year, i get reimbursed. The worst case scenario, if i dont accumulate it, i end up dependent me and a about 100 a month. I have about 10 million worth of catastrophic coverage. That includes if i travel anywhere in the world. Not just the United States. I can go to a hospital, they get my for mission and call mexico. Host the same insurance covers what you bought through in mexico through a u. S. Company in mexico . Caller yes. It includes dental. I am experimenting. I want to redo it again. Host how far do you go for most of your basic treatment . Caller i live eight miles from the border. It is right on the corner. I am planning to keep it going. The idea of what im trying to push i was raised with no insurance. Mexicod go to mexicali, to be seen. Solution of the Health Issues we have in the United States is we dont have enough doctors. That is number one. Over in mexico, along the border area, as soon as you cross the streetshe first 3, 4, 5 i would see either a doctor or pharmacy. I also get reimbursed for medication. That gets a little expensive because i had an infection. I was in california. I have v. A. I tried to go to the clinic and all they had was a telehealth clinic and i could not use it because i was not enrolled in their area. Lastly, is this a common thing in the vicinity of the border with mexico . Do a lot of people have this urance instead of insurance in mexico . Caller employers in the border area typically offer it. I work for the county. They allowed me to have my health care in mexico. This is the first time a have done this. Other people are amazed by it. I dont know how common it is personally. This is the first time i was introduced to it. It is working great. Host thank you for telling us about it. Michael and west virginia. In wheeling, west virginia. Caller first of all im a veteran also. Four years in the service in the 1960s. I got out of the service. I had medicare when i turned 65. Then i developed cancer of the esophagus and stomach. I had surgeries and i had to go for a year the procedure called an endoscope and a dilation. Upmc. To im about 30 miles from pittsburgh. I go to the veterans clinic in pittsburgh. Theyi was going to upmc, were charging me 29,000, give or take a few bucks each way once a year for an endoscope in the procedure and the anesthesia. About a year and half ago i got approved for an agent orange issue at 40 disability. It took me 30 years to get that approved. When i applied by phone i got that. I just had the same procedure done at the v. A. It only ran me 11,000. The Veterans Administration is not an Insurance Company. They did what they Call Community sharing. They shared it out to a doctor. I was more than 25 miles from pittsburgh. They shared it with the same doctor that did the procedure on me for the last several years. 18,000 a difference of between going and having medicare pay for it or having the Veterans Administration pay for it. Say you had a guy that read wrote a book about the v. A. He is right about the issues. Go to the Veterans Administration, and they only take care of Service Related issues. If you go for something the guy been,ich it could have but anyway if you have a disability of at least 30 , they cover everything and you dont pay anything. What i did want to say is the difference between medicare paying for my endoscope procedure for the past several years was around 29,000. Host does that surprise you but all . It was the same doctor with the same procedure with applico difference . With that big of a difference . Caller i couldnt believe it. I paid it every year for several years. He went through medicare. It went through medicare. The same doctor that the same procedure and it was a difference of right around 17,000. But i have to think president thank President Trump with Community Sharing, but along with president obama and president bush. It took several years for Community Sharing to come out. Im a veteran and im going strictly to the v. A. Fort rid of medicare d prescriptions because the v. A. Covers my prescriptions. I am probably going to drop medicare b also because i dont need it. Host michael, appreciate that. The 2020 campaign. On technology for the Technology Section of the New York Times, new facebook rules stepup at scrutiny of political advertisers. Facebook said it was strengthening how it verifies which groups and people place political advertising eyesight has the social Network Braces for the 2020 president ial election. It works to reduce online disinformation. The move is built on rules that facebook introduced last year for the van requiring political advertisers today vaulted name of the organizations responsible for ads on its platform and approve their identities. Facebook enacted that policy after being criticized for allowing russian operatives to manipulate its ads in the 2016 american president ial election to divide voters. Under the new rules advertisers will need to further demonstrate they are registered with the United States government. That will require submitting employer identification numbers, a federal Election Commission identification number, or government website domain. Smaller businesses need to provide verifiable phone numbers and business email addresses. In fort lauderdale, melvin, employer insured. You are on the air. Caller good morning. It might beto say necessary for a lot of times when you do these particular issues that you have information there to advise some of the callers. You give information that is definitely incorrect, especially people calling and putting down candidates Health Care Programs and Great Britain and the rest of them. The information is available to you and everyone else. There are independent studies about this health care, the places they are coming around the country. All those companies, those countries people were talking about, for specially canada and britain and germany, they are all rated way above the United States by independent people from around the country who looked at the Health Care Systems. Put information needs to be out of these people stop repeating this ridiculous stuff that they know nothing about. There is factual data that shows these other countries Health Care Systems are above ours. United states with all the major countries everyone else, the United States is 38th. The information is valuable. Im tired of people repeating stuff that is inaccurate and other people think that is true. You need to make sure re when people do that there was Information Available for that. Host Bernie Sanders, is medicare for all proposal. He is tweaking the proposal to court union voters. Foxbusiness reporting Bernie Sanders tweaked his medicare for all Insurance Plan and an apparent bid to alleviate fears among labor representatives that it could lead to a loss of some benefits for workers who negotiated deals under the current system. Foxbusiness rights the plan but mandate companies with existing union negotiated Health Care Plans submitted to new negotiations under the National LaborRelations Board watch with savings funnel and a like higher pay. Labor officials of press concerns the system would hurt prenegotiated benefits. Doreen in rhode island. Good morning. Caller how are you . Medicare. I also have blue cross. I also have to take care apart b of part b for my prescriptions. Hi pay for this and when i go to get my prescriptions highpaying 360 for enzymes i need for my pancreas. Thats from surgery i had for the doctors messed up. I need these enzymes to eat. When i first went to get them at the beginning of the year when i first had to get on this part b, the prescription plan, they wanted 900 for them. This is ridiculous. I called blue cross, which is part of the part b of medicare. Then they had to change my enzymes. They are telling me what i have go. St i will let you youre getting a little confused with the tv. In new york city. Welcome. Morning. Ood i want to start with employer insurance which i used for my husband when he fell ill from taking a new high Blood Pressure medicine. That drug was unfortunately taken off the market i the fda recently. Problem whichuge needs to be looked at. That drug started my husbands health issue. Under my employer plan, for those people who think there is country, on this