obama and a health reform expert and, of course, we all new medical contributor natalie azar. good to see you, natalie. antwan, let me start with you. the idea that the policy premiums have gone up considerably, that s one of the chief criticisms of obamacare. what s your response to that? well, the main point is that premiums have always gone up in health care. for 20 years, premiums have gone up and people have had the same kind of challenge. what the affordable care act has done is slowed that premium growth at unprecedented levels. so, yeah, i understand people don t want the premiums to go up but prices for everything goes up. gas prices today are not the same gas prices of 1991 or 2001. premium growth is slower and more people have had coverage which actually lowers the cost of insurance in the community of people.
southern pennsylvania is the economy is something we ve heard a lot about and people have put forward some of their solutions for obamacare. you heard there a bit about medicare and medicaid. we ve heard this idea of more competition in the marketplace, something key to donald trump s messaging as he traveled through here during the campaign season. but whether it s his tweets or the statements he makes publicly, the way that he has framed this issue and laid blame on democrats, especially when it comes to a complicated issue like obamacare, when you talk about some of these premiums, there are economists who argue that it would have gone up anyway but the time and attention that he has spent on the historic diner in lincoln in historic gettysburg matters on a day like today. the question is, depending on what happens in capitol hill, will it matter during the midterms, craig. cal perry, thank you. antwan is under president
seven plans, if you have seven plans, that means you don t have a plan. i m very concerned about what this means for the american public and those whose lives are in a better place because they have health coverage. dr. natalie, antwan mentioned some of the basics of the aca. what are others as well? it may be redundant to talk about it but it s important to reinforce. basically, more private insurance companies were going to be offering different health insurance policies offered to lower income people, as antwan mentioned, there was an expansion of medicaid that was federally funded and improved medicare, some providers didn t like some of the changes because our reimbursements, we saw some of them come down. guess what, that meant that premiums came down for medicare enrollees. you may have heard the donut hole gap between when insurance is going to kick in to pay for
because of health care reform and if we had to do it all over again, i would do the same thing but times ten and i would also make sure that the media do a better job of getting us to tell the stories of real people who work in health care every single day and not people who fully don t understand the law. antwan, my old friend, good to see you. natalie azar, good to see you as well. this is going to be top of mind for the next few weeks and months. we hope that both of you will come back. let s get an update to our microsoft pulse question. we ve been asking, should obamacare be repealed and replaced? that was the question. the answer so far, 89% of you say no. there s still time to weigh in. keep voting at pulse.msnbc.com. defending his life. the man convicted for killing nine people in a church basement in charleston representing himself in the death penalty portion of his trial, his
lose their policies. the people who are currently being taken care of by or receiving their funding through the federal government from medicaid would lose their coverage. what scares me the most about it as a physician is the idea that there are people and i understand the argument that premiums increased astro no, ma am clee in certain places and certain anecdotes where people s premiums increased but what really upsets me is a person who has a chronic disease, finally able to afford health care and has an established relationship with a doctor and is receiving medications and suddenly that just goes poof, literally. i don t know how else you can describe a scenario if this is repealed without a replacement or at least a discussion in reasonable detail about a replacement what a replacement would look like. antwan, even as you know, some supporters of obamacare have said that the pr campaign to educate folks in this country