i think the way you protect that is, first and foremost you make it very clear. as we did in the first bill, but with the amendments that have taken place, in the last several weeks, and come forward, it is even better still, that we re basically borrowing an idea from the state of maine that has seen a significant drop in premiums for people on their health insurance because you take people that have pre-existing and costly conditions and put them into a high-risk pool and you subsidize that so that it is affordable to those individuals. so you re guaranteeing coverage for pre-existing conditions. and flexibility that you re referring to in this latest macarthur amendment, states can only apply for that waiver in flexibility if they have either a federal or state high-risk pool that guarantees that people will be able to have coverage. and it will be affordable. by the way, terrific segue. i have two maine senators coming on the show later today. i will ask senator susan collins a
besides protecting them, are you going to be able to prevent their premiums from skyrocketing? that s the concern. if you isolate them into risk pools that the inevitable impact is the rise in premiums. how do you protect that? i think the way you protect that is, first and foremost you make it very clear. as we did in the first bill, but with the amendments that have taken place, in the last several weeks, and come forward, it is even better still, that we re basically borrowing an idea from the state of maine that has seen a significant drop in premiums for people on their health insurance because you take people that have pre-existing and costly conditions and put them into a high-risk pool and you subsidize that so that it is affordable to those individuals. so you re guaranteeing coverage for pre-exisng conditions. anflexibility that you re referring to in this latest macarthur amendment, states can only apply for that waiver in flexibility if they have either a federal or sta
thunderous crowds, virtually unanimous support of the people who supported us in last fall s election. but was even more inspiring to me, as we walk the shop room floor, not just the business owners expressing enthusiasm for the president s plan to cut business taxes and cut taxes across the board, but the guys that had paused from working on the line, to reach out to this president and just thank him for being there. somebody said to me recently thatverybody that puts on a steel-toed bt ins couny knows they ve got somebody fighting for them every day, and it is absolutely true, and it is president donald trump. let s get out of atmospherics and get into some details. talking about health care a little bit. i know you ve been working hard on this, in many ways back and forth, people see you ducking into different congressional offices. one of them has to do with this so-called macarthur amendment that moderates on the other side are worried about. i wouldn t be surprised if
mechanics and actuarial science of insurance has come up with an amendment that we think works very well and it gets to where we all want to go. we want to bring down costs, preserve preks for people with pre-existing conditions, and we want to respect the fact that states, you know, have different issues, different health care marketplaces, and we want to give states greater flexibility so that they can get the maximum reduction in policies and premiums and so that we can get the best possible health care system. what we ve learned is a cookie cutter one size fits all health care system doesn t work for america. it s a diverse country. different states have different rules and different systems. we need to respect that, and that s what this macarthur amendment does. he s one of the leading moderates, co-chair of the tuesday group, good shot archer, right? he s one of the leading shot sorry. it with a good shot. pretty cool. he s one of the leading members of the tuesday group, so i
waiver, there are multiple layers of pre-existing condition protections, like continuous coverage. if you have a health care problem and you have health care insurance, you can t be denied or raided for higher health care costs, and if you switch your plan, you keep your coverage, the same protections apply, even if your state gets a waiver. but the more important point i think is why this amendment i think is a step in the right direction is we believe the smarter way to go on getting premiums down and protecting people with pre-existing conditions is having federal and state support for people who are sick, support that catastrophic illness with greater subsidies so that everybody else doesn t have to bear those costs in their insurance pools. 1% of the people in the individual market drive 23% of the costs. so, if we directly support that catastrophic coverage, it s sort of reinsurance on top of insurance, then you re lowering everyone else s prices. you re making it easier for peop