Crosstalk: November 16, 2016

Twila Brase is the president and co-founder of the Citizens' Council for Health Freedom and is a certified public health nurse.  She provides commentary for the Health Freedom Minute and provides testimony at the state legislative level and also meets with members of Congress.

How does Twila respond to the idea of repeal and replace when it comes to Obamacare? She's concerned that if we wait for and have agreement on the replacement, we might never get to the repeal.  She recalled that back in January the Republicans in Congress put a repeal bill into the hands of President Obama.  He vetoed that bill but the Republicans know how to do it.  It won't repeal everything because it would have to come through a reconciliation budget process but it could do considerable damage to stall what's currently happening with Obamacare.

Jim noted that some feel repeal isn't possible because it would throw the nation into an even greater health care crisis.  Is it too late?  Twila indicated that one alternative is a single payer system where the government gets all the money, they choose and pay all the providers and the insurance industry becomes a government contractor.  So in the end our choices come down to going back to freedom (a system that is even more free than where we were before Obamacare started) or to move toward a government run healthcare system.

How might the GOP controlled House affect healthcare?  Twila communicated that we'll get to see just how committed they (and the Senate) are to repealing Obamacare.  We know that there are several replacement plans plus we'll get to see what President-elect Trump has in mind.  At this point we know he wants to keep the Obamacare provision of allowing children to stay on their parents policies until age 26 and requiring insurance companies to cover everyone no matter what pre-existing conditions are in place.

The problem Twila has with the pre-existing conditions provision is that she believes that's not insurance.  Under Obamacare we don't have insurance.  Insurance is for that which you don't have and you hope you'll never have happen to you.  She gave the example of homeowners insurance.  If your house is burning down, you cannot obtain homeowners insurance.  At that point you don't have a risk, you have a reality.  Mandating that insurance companies must cover all people with pre-existing conditions is third-party mandatory financing for all these medical expenses.  That, along with young, healthy people who have opted out because they don't have to buy insurance and don't like the prices they see, is what has caused premiums to skyrocket.  In spite of this, President-elect Trump wants to keep the pre-existing conditions point that has imploded the individual market.

Much more is covered on this topic, including a portion of discussion regarding Twila's top 10 items that she feels President-elect Trump should initiate until a repeal bill is signed.  The program wraps up with numerous questions from Crosstalk listeners.