honor to do business with you, it s a great honor to have you in the white house and we look forward to providing health care that is extraordinary. better than any other country anywhere in the world and we can do that. we have the talent, we have the capacity and we have the people. so we ll work on that together. and maybe before the press leaves, we can just introduce yourself and your company and the public will get to see what you re about and then if things aren t working out, i m blaming you anyway, you know that. so we ll start with brad. thank you, mr. president. i m brad wilson, ceo of blue cross and blue shield of north carolina. pleased to represent our 3.9 million customers here today. great job. matt isles, i represent america s health insurance plans, we represent all plans
as governors understand that healthcare and your health itself is one of the most important things that a family has to consider. we got to have a healthy work force, we got to have sustainable system that works for our nation that doesn t cause us to go into debt, which we already are. we already have a $22 trillion debt. and for us as governors, we have rising costs of medicaid and private businesses have rising costs of health insurance itself. so we have to have a system that works for all the people, but we want the american people to know that as governors we re going to do everything we can to make sure that we have compassion and that we help develop a system transformative system that will create flexibility for our states so that we can provide solutions within our own states and we, frankly, think that we can provide those solutions and we have a president and a vice-president that s willing to listen to us. i know just since i ve been here the last couple of days i ve had f
40,000 jobs as a result of those federal investments in healthcare. those are jobs that we re going to lose in urban oregon and rural oregon. that s devastating to our communities that are still struggling to recover from this recession over the last couple of years. within the governors, we hear all the stories about the republican governors are involved in this discussion, that discussion. no democrats are involved. it s almost like it s like a back-room deal that s kind of setting up. then you re going to have to take it or leave it. senator murkly had 3,000 people show up at his town hall. they re very concerned. they don t want oregonians to lose their healthcare. and i ve watched people get up in those things and talk about their home, their city, their community, and the effects that taking away healthcare will have on them. i ve watched women stand up and say that they would be dead of breast cancer but for the ability to have obtained treatment. i ve watched disabled peo
we have to start telling the truth in washington. people are hurting. there s a proposal that s going to take away their healthcare. how would you feel? there are a number of republican governors who expanded medicaid under the affordable care act, took the commitment that the federal government made on face value and said, okay, based on this commitment we re going to go forward and do this. and i think they are standing side by side with democratic governors and say they don t want to cut back on who gets coverage. we particularly don t want to cut back on who gets coverage to give a tax break to millionaires. all weekend i spent as much time with republicans if not more, i spent more time with republican governors than democratic governors. you re trying to steal each other s best ideas, make them a little better and then hope that they steal them back from us, right? this is going to continue to be a big breaking news story today because, again, president trump right now me
i want to thank also secretary tom price who is with us and who is doing a phenomenal job on a very complex subject, subject of health care. he s an advocate for the patients. tom is all about the patience. that s what he wants. he wants to have a great health care system. obamacare has been a disaster and it s only getting worse. last year alone obamacare premiums increased by double digits. since it has gone into effect, premiums are up by almost 100% in many areas. and i think that this year it s going to be really the year that i ve always been predicted, 17 is going to be a catastrophic year for obamacare, for payments and you just take a look at what s happening in various states like arizona, i believe it was up 11 of%, it s going to be worse this year. obamacare forced providers to limit the plan options they offered to patients and caused them to drive prices way up. now a third of united states