COVID, COBRA, & COVERAGE – Health care amid the crisis / HealthChoice

00:00

Bobby Scott how you doing hey Bobby hey okay well welcome everybody thank you for joining us this afternoon moments ago we passed seventy thousand fatalities in the United States from kovat and in the month of April alone roughly 30 million people applied for unemployment many of those who lost

00:33

their jobs will also lose their health coverage in the middle of a healthcare crisis there is a federal program that conservatives a lifeline for those losing losing coverage it's called Cobra and it gives people the option and the opportunity to keep their employer-based coverage but like much of our safety net that program is intentionally stingy and you can keep your coverage but you have to pay for it you have to pay for your share of that coverage and you have to pay for the employers share and for a

01:03

typical family we're talking about you know upwards of fifteen hundred dollars per month joining us this afternoon are two prominent Democratic leaders in the Congress we're trying to fix Cobra for this crisis so the federal government covers 100% of the cost instead of zero percent of the cost those two leaders are Illinois Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois who's also the Minority Whip and has been a force on health care since his days in the house when he took

01:35

on the tobacco industry and also with us is congressman and house and in labor chairperson Bobby Scott who's had his fingerprints on really every important piece of legislation dealing with education and labor for the past two decades and also with us are two experts on this topic Gillian Berg who has studied efforts to expand Cobra and works at Mathematica which is a great organization and Stan Dorn from families USA where he directs

02:07

the center for coverage and thank you everybody senator durbin I know you have limited time with us so before we run out of time let me start with you you and your Democratic colleagues have been fighting for protections that would enable laid-off workers to keep their coverage through Cobra 820,000 people have lost their jobs already just this month in Illinois nearly 600,000 people

02:36

have lost their jobs not too far away in Kentucky which is leader McConnell's home state so this is an equal opportunity job killer what are the opportunities and challenges facing this effort in the Senate giving that it's hitting Republicans and Democrats on the economy equally well I can tell you that if folks are listening to people who are losing their jobs they'll know they're in a bit of a panic I can't think of a

03:09

worse situation than to be told their company's going to let you go and have no choice you look around and you think what's next for me in terms of feeding this family so we ended up with our extended unemployment insurance coverage we gave six hundred bucks more a week to try to make sure that it was big enough to take care of most at least for the most basic expenses realizing that we weren't going to match the salaries and a lot of people were making on the job

03:40

but trying to keep him alive until this economy turns and then came a debate in the Senate one of the few real debates we had in votes we had as to whether the $600 a week was a windfall there were people arguing the Senators ass from Nebraska was one of them and a few others who said wait a minute some people are going to come out ahead when you add the state unemployment benefit to six hundred bucks and the honest answer is yes that may happen it may happen but it is more likely than

04:12

to six hundred bucks plus the state contribution is to be enough to make a difference and one of the things that was obvious is $600 a week sounds pretty substantial and too you look at the average copra Premium if I lose my job and I want to keep that health insurance a hand on the job for a lot of different reasons I like the coverage it's providing the right Hospital the right doctor for my wife my son my daughter for someone in a special condition you know then I got to pick up the cost that the employer was putting

04:43

on the table that means in the average situation 1,700 bucks a month 79 bucks a month we get $600 a week you do the math and say well you just net about 700 hours in this federal bonus if you're going to paint a Cobra side of it so we look at it and we think picking up the Cobra cost is the best way to make sure people have continuity of coverage peace of mind the kind of hospitals and doctors they've been working with for some period of time and that's why

05:14

congressman Scott and I are kind of pushing this concept take a look at what the options are when you lose your job if they're pretty basic you can enroll in the fordable Care Act plan if you qualify and most do it may change your insurance company your providers and such and for some families that is problematic you could eventually if you're awful work long enough and I hope you aren't which might be qualify for Medicaid or you can go this Cobra this is not a perfect answer but it is the

05:45

right transition answer as far as I'm concerned keep in mind that categories that we're talking about here of assistance during this crisis are pretty limited and they have a deadline we anticipate under the small business loan that you will be finished with your loan and your payment for payroll and benefits and such by June 30th we anticipate under the unemployment that we'll pay until July 1st well think

06:16

about those two dates June 30th of July first and ask yourself are we going to be out of the woods by then well I hope we will but it'll be a miracle instead we're going to see this economy start to move forward as we start to reopen and people start going back to work what Bobby's got an hour trying to do is cover that cost of the health of church go ahead at work until life gets better and more predictable and there's there's a notice source of benefits for you that you and your family can count on so that's what against I hope we can get

06:46

support bipartisan support over here the alternative is an awful lot of people who were just not going to have basic health insurance coverage so that's where we stand at the moment we are hoping to make this part of the next big bill which is I believe I've heard is going to originate in the house soon and I that may be the cue for Bobby to step in and tell his side of the story which I hope is the same one I just told you great Thank You senator I just want to say to our audience on the Xoom call you

07:16

can ask questions just move your cursor over your screen a box will come up it allows you to type in a question and I'm gonna ask some of the opening questions but then I want to take questions from the audience for our guests chairman Scott you are the author of the house legislation to make Cobra free for the duration of the pandemic if five hundred and seventy thousand Virginians have filed for UI since March in neighboring North Carolina and I mentioned that just because there's a you know the ranking Republican on your

07:48

committee is from North Carolina the number is seven hundred fifty thousand this seems pretty important no matter where you live what party you identify with his disease doesn't really seem to care this bill the next package will originate in the house what do you see for the prognosis of this what do you see as the obstacles for this and you're on mute right now and I don't know if that's you or us that's it was me your good thank you thank you thank you Jim

08:20

and thank you for your good work thank you for your good work on on on Third Way and I want to thank dick Durbin from for his good work on this bill and a lot of other bills so but over the years you've already pointed out the point the fact that 30 million people just in the last couple of weeks I found unemployment and we know that those who lose their jobs a lot of them their insurance we're reminded of the problem with with associating your

08:52

insurance with your job but that's that's the way it is and Cobra protects people when they lose their jobs they can keep their insurance but as you pointed out they have to make the payment and if you've lost your job you don't have a thousand or fifteen hundred dollars a month and many people will just have to go without the workers health coverage Protection Act introduced in the House a me and Steve Horford and Debbie Dingell I would cover

09:22

the full cost of the Cobra Cobra payment it would cover you if you've been laying off if you've been furloughed or even if you've lost hours and makes your part-time ineligible for health care it would come cover that too it's based on the experience we had no 18:09 when we had legislation that covered two-thirds of the cost and we learned then the two-thirds wasn't enough because most of the people who lost their jobs don't have the one-third and so that's why the such the decision

09:53

was made not to subsidize the full payment and Senator Durbin has indicated the the value of it you get to if you don't do this and you go into the marketplace or get Medicaid or if you just go uninsured go to the hospital don't pay your costs get cost shifted on everybody else so there is a cost of not doing anything but if you if you have to get other insurance you you will

10:24

probably end up with a different provider network so that you have to lose your doctors you may have to start your deductible all over again which is an insult and then three months later when you get your job back you have to say goodbye to your new providers you get your Oh providers back and lo and behold you might have to start the deductible all over again and so that's it is makes a lot more sense to let people have the continuity of care is if we're in the middle of a health pandemic

10:55

the last thing people need to worry about is their health care coverage this provides one less thing that they have to worry about going back and forth in and out of insurance whether they can afford it or not but they will have health insurance there are a lot of other things we need to be doing and we can go into that if we have time but we need to make sure that this one worry is taken off the plate people who had health insurance won't lose it if they lose their job Gillian Gillian Bert you

11:28

studied this in the past at Mathematica and as chairman Scott said Congress went two-thirds of the way they said okay we're gonna we're gonna cover people's the employer share of people's Cobra they're gonna have to cover their own but you also found it and probably be in part because you have to cover one third of it the uptake wasn't that great what did your study find that kind of can

11:59

give insights to how this should work better this time thanks and thanks for inviting me here today so you know the Department of Labor asks Mathematica to fill in a lot of a knowledge gaps around COBRA coverage and this Cobra stuff sees it was a really big change in policy and we wanted to understand who was able to take advantage of it and I think we learned a few important lessons that we should keep in mind for as we think about policy today the first is that we found that less than a third of eligible

12:30

individuals were even aware of the subsidy so these were individuals that had filed for unemployment insurance they had employer-provided coverage when they lost their job so they were Cobra Cobra eligible and they just weren't aware of the subsidy you know employers were required to notify individuals but those those notifications are very complex very written in legal language you know when you've lost your job and you're trying to figure out how to pay with the pay the bills that are coming in and all the stress you know you're not necessarily processing that notice

13:01

that you get from your employer about Cobra and we also found that you know even with the 65 percent subsidy Cobra was still too expensive for most of people who were eligible and as you would expect you know we saw that Cobra take-up was higher among the more advantaged workers workers who had higher earnings prior to job loss workers with higher levels of education we did find that the subsidy increased Cobra take up by 15% so there was an

13:32

impact of this subsidy offer but the impact was much smaller than you might have expected if you asked individuals a series of hypothetical questions you know if if we cut the price of Cobra by this amount would you should take it it up you know if you cut the price of Cobra by this amount would you have taken it up um you know to 65% subsidy people think that they would really take advantage of that subsidy and that it would really change their behavior we didn't find that impact and I think it's probably a combination of that lack of

14:04

awareness of the subsidy and at the end of the day there are a lot of competing expenses and that remaining Cobra mount was just too high so I think those are some of the top-line findings happy to talk more after good to hear from Stan and so families USA has really been at the forefront of expanding health care for people for as long as I can remember and I think for outside groups they did

14:35

more to pass the ACA than just about anyone else so I just want to give kudos from you and Families USA for the great work you've done you've looked at this also both at families and in a previous Javed Urban Institute you looked at health care tax credits you looked at uptake what is it that you found that you think is a lesson that can apply here well from thank you first of all Jim for those kind words and for inviting me here today and it's an honor to be here with chairman Scott and Senator Durbin

15:06

and jilly and and you and thank you for the great work that you all have done when we look at the health coverage tax credit program that person acted in 2002 as part of the Trade Act and it was intended to help laid off workers and early retirees like the the Cobra subsidies in 2009 the health cover health here tax credit program HCTC covered only 65% of premiums the take-up rate was 10 to 20 percent the most in the the

15:37

the the surveys that were done of laid off workers and early retirees tracked perfectly with what Jillian found a few years later and the Cobra subsidies in the Recovery Act namely cost was a huge barrier for people but the other piece of the story was was complicated to sign up for coverage and confusing to sign up for coverage Cobra was one option there were also other options and there were a few time and in fact just to circle back to the point that Jillian made about people not understanding despite getting

16:07

the Cobra notices even people who had gone through in-person briefings their one-stop centers didn't retain the information that they were given the only time we have we saw significant take-up with the HCTC program was when unions or government officials provided intensive one-on-one help to laid off workers and their families helping them understand the situation what the programs were they were signing up for filling out paperwork for them being Troubleshooters diagnosing problems it

16:38

was intensive but it wound up raising the take-up rate from 10 to 20 percent to 50 percent or more just an incredible impact in a very flawed program and one of the most important take-home lessons is people have just lost their jobs are overwhelmed with the emotional effects of job loss the practical consequences of needing to figure out what is this unemployment insurance thing how do I get it looking for a new job maybe doing with the SNAP program it's just overwhelming and people do not have the

17:09

bandwidth to sort through a complicated health coverage system and complete paperwork and sign up some do but a lot don't so as Congress moves forward and and I have to say that the the bill that chairman Scott and his colleagues introduced is really fabulous and addressing some of these problems it takes an unaffordable premium and covers it for people and for those who are affluent instead of doing means testing upfront that slows enrollment into coverage and will often stop people with procedural red tape obstacles instead of that

17:40

the bill really brilliantly says when you file your urine tax returns if you make more than $250,000 a year for a family then you have to pay back some or all of the subsidies on a sliding scale you know industry was originally saying well maybe we should have a 90 percent subsidy and I and I really come in third way and chairman Scott for stepping forward saying you know that is not really gonna be enough for somebody with a family plan that's even if you pay just 10% of that premium on average that's 171 dollars a month well if you're trying to figure

18:11

out which bill you're not going to pay this month is it utility bill is it your car payment is it your mortgage one hundred seventy one dollars is a lot of money and we know what's gonna happen people who don't have much money are not gonna pay it people who are healthy are not gonna pay it the only people are gonna pay it are those who are really having serious health problems and they'll come up with the money particularly if they have it sitting around is that is not the road we want to go down and I just think it's really terrific that that chairman Scott in that third way and and Senator Durbin are moving forward with something that

18:42

really makes coverage affordable for people who are really scuffling and having tough times and even that payment plan it just adds a new complication and a wrinkle it says I've got to fill out this and that and the more you make this complicated at this point you certainly won uptake to be at its maximum for Senator Durbin if he's able to answer before leaving and also for congressman Scott this is a question from the audience

19:10

and why why would any Republicans oppose this I'm just I'm taking a couple questions and putting them together why would they oppose this other than either they just don't want to help people or they just have this view that government shouldn't be more involved in health care people in their states are getting decimated by this and losing their jobs okay I'll put this real hurdle okay I'll put the cards on the table here for

19:42

among friends I'm sure and I'll be pretty blunt about this i if you look at the options available to unemployed people and the in position publicly stated position here's what it comes down to if the option is signing up for Obamacare they hated like the devil hates holy water so they don't want unemployed people to do that if the second option is adding them to a Medicaid program 14 republican-led states have refused to expand Medicaid coverage over the last 10 years so they

20:14

don't like Medicaid in the third part of this thing continuing through Cobra the existing health insurance the red flag there is right to life in the abortion issue in four states California New York Oregon and Washington it is mandated health insurance policies include abortion services okay so if you happen to have employer-based health insurance in those states your plan already covers abortion services now if you lose your job in Cobra because federal government is going to step in and pick up a

20:46

hundred percent those who oppose abortion say wait a minute you're asking me to pay for abortion services won't do it so we're kind of stuck on this issue which comes back time and again abortion the Hyde and all the rest of it on the third option so I've given you the three avenues of Republican opposition I hope we can work out the third one 100% Cobra reimbursement and some sort of answer that satisfies those who are concerned about funding abortion services but

21:17

that's what it comes down to that is how you dance on the head of a pin icon chairman support the legislation the chamber of commerce is indicated support so there's broad bipartisan support when you get caught up in the issue of abortion it's more sound and fury than substance if you fund it all except the cost of the abortion coverage it's hard

21:50

to find what you're talking about we had under the Affordable Care Act we went through all these jumps and hoops and the if there's abortion coverage it to be separately billed and the it but it but the legislation requires it to be at least a dollar where we have not found a single insurance company that is charged more than a dollar because

22:23

essentially it's the same it's the same price so I mean what what what are we talking about in terms of of subsidy I mean that the the the rhetoric involve greatly exceeds the appropriation but in any case there is broad bipartisan support for the legislation including the fact that the Chamber of Commerce has indicated support so I hope we don't get tripped up over something that you

22:54

can't even quantify I mean do you think that if the plan is free 100 minus $1 that from your study that the uptake rates will be close to a hundred percent or do you think more needs to be done based on what you saw on your study and

23:27

stand I'd like you to answer that - yeah I think the short answer is no not everyone will take it up if if the only notification about the subsidy comes in the form of a letter from their employer you know I think that's not enough if it's combined essentially with the public outreach campaign or you know maybe the hundred percent will just be a clear message for people but I think we've learned that said having employer

24:00

sent the letter is not going to be sufficient I think the other thing is just health insurance is confusing and you know what does it what's getting subsidized is if their premiums what does that mean about their co-pays you know the language of health insurance is just not a language that everyone is comfortable with and so I think it's going to be important to have really clear communication about what this cover subsidy does for people and totally agree um raising the amount

24:31

of the subsidy will be critically important by itself that will get a lot of people signed up and insured but it is confusing people are not focused on it I mean if you look at Google searches over the last few months health insurance to Google searches haven't gone up people are focused on other things and just picking up on Jillian's point I think even if you do outreach in public information that is not really going to sink in in the really tough world that people are facing they've just lost their jobs you really want to

25:01

reach these folks you need to have a major campaign of consumer assistance where people who understand the system are working one-on-one with those families cost money but that's what you need to do if you want to get people to keep their health insurance or move to other forms of health insurance that's why we had families USA are calling for Congress to do a mandatory appropriation of 600 million dollars to make sure that we do not get overwhelmed by a tsunami of health insurance losses in the coming months that will just compound the

25:30

existing pandemic of recession let me take a couple of questions that that are from the audience and just kind of combine them and for you consequence cotton I don't know if Senator Durbin is still in the line now or there okay terrific what does this make you think about the reforms we need long term for health care this is a

26:05

certainly a real jolt you know what needs to be done we got to get real about this I mean if we had any question about a safety net including affordable quality health insurance I hope those questions are gone now we're also damn vulnerable out there every one of us and if the federal government doesn't say the test is free the vaccine is free applications and all hospitalizations that follow when you start to talk about the numbers we're talking about here would like the average person out in a

26:34

second I mean it's just it's a fact and you can argue some argue make it medicare-for-all some argue in the marketplace as Obamacare trying to do we better find an answer that gives people satisfaction and peace of mind and the current situation does not with your job when you lose your job or you change jobs your health care goes along with it

27:07

but as Dick said there are a lot of other things we can be doing in this legislation and he mentioned the fact that we have passed in previous bills in the last few weeks the fact that you can get a free test no copay in deductible a free vaccine when that's available no copay and deductible and what we need is treatment this is a random thing people a lot of people are not going to get infected so I'm infected no symptoms all the way through some mild symptoms some severe symptoms

27:38

and some are going to be hospitalized with massive hospital bills that would bankrupt the average family the treatment for covert 19 ought to be covered as a as a government expense so that you don't get into the situation you don't get into the situation with insurance companies covering a pandemic that wasn't part of their analysis when they set the premiums we can encourage states that have an expanded Medicaid to

28:10

expand Medicaid the cost of the state is ideological it's not arithmetic the cost of the state is almost negligible in Virginia we have a six percent income tax and six hundred sales tax is the 90 percent match so if you give a doctor a dollar he's going to give you six cents back and income tax and go spend it six more cents in sales tax you got your money back before you've done anything before you get to the fact that if you if you got stay a state hospital where somebody didn't pay it

28:41

just didn't pay he had him a Medicaid card they paid 90% of the bill with money you didn't have I mean most states will make a profit expanding Medicaid so you can't say that that's that's all ideology and it's nothing to do with with expense we need special enrollment periods when people this is a new situation a lot of people moved off and didn't and let their and it didn't sign up for insurance well let him get into in turn into insurance policy now special special enrollment we need

29:13

to strengthen subsidies and we subsidize the policies up to a point and then stop right at the cliff it family for it's about a hundred thousand run a hundred thousand dollars you make just over that you got to pay full sticker price there's no reason where we can't say you're gonna pay nine percent of your every of your salary forever at some point the nine percent is gonna exceed the sticker price so it doesn't matter but you've got a lot of people in that gap that that cannot afford a family

29:44

policy that could if you extended the percentage all the way out you need to in the sabotage of the Affordable Care Act the lawsuit in Texas they could find all of the Affordable Care Act protections from pre-existing conditions all of the subsidies everything else unconstitutional for some reason that case is going on the availability creating for Association health plans which pull out healthy groups so that

30:15

everybody left behind pays more we need to discourage your in those policies and a lot of things that we can do but the main thing is nikkor said we have to make health care available to everybody so that when you have a pandemic and you have a lot to worry about your health insurance isn't one of them Bobby let me everyone footnote to that if I can add one footnote to that here's what we learned politicians can stop coverage of health insurance by the laws they write

30:48

tensions can't stop pandemic this pandemic doesn't have you know tinker's damn weather the politicians in Washington want to exclude or include a certain group we are all vulnerable when we say that there's a segment of America we're just not going to cover them we shouldn't have to cover them we're not going to cover them completely we're only going to cover them partially guess what that's your neighbor that's the one standing next to you on the bus that's a person that you work with that's the one who's got a kid sitting next to your grandson in school and you say to yourself you cannot deal with public

31:19

health unless you deal with public and that's everybody we've all got to get under the same tent that's exactly right this is truly not theoretical but practical we're all in this together I want to make a quick plug for third ways health care plan which covers everybody through Obamacare and caps everybody's out-of-pocket costs no matter where you get your insurance whether it's on the exchange whether it's Medicare Medicaid or through your employer Stan you've been working on the health care issue

31:49

your entire adult life what has this made you think in terms of going forward well I I completely agree with everything that chairman Scott and Senator Durbin have been saying we have we have to make health care a lot more affordable for people and we have to make it a lot easier for people to enroll we have to make sure that our government agencies that are running these programs have the resources they need to do their jobs I mean we're just it's just appalling people cannot get through on the unemployment insurance websites the ars

32:21

isn't able to get checks out for dependents until next year I mean it's just you know the Medicaid agencies have been told by the federal government that it's okay they can disregard the normal timelines for processing applications they can tell people in the middle of a pandemic or you just you just sit and wait it's okay you okay health insurance you for a while until it takes our time to process those applications you have to fix the mechanisms the machinery of government we're now learning that we all may wind up being dependent on those government agencies that have been

32:51

starved for funding under the the current Senate majority I I think that the things that that we're said a few minutes are exactly right the only other things on woody our there was a really important set of provisions inside the taking responsibility for workers and Families Act really wonderful wonderful bill that members of the house introduced as the cares that was the Senate and in in addition to helping people above 400% of poverty hundred thousand dollars a year for a family afford that legislation borrowed bipartisan provisions of

33:23

Massachusetts that that state had used effectively since 2006 and said you know what if you are poor or near poor you don't have to pay anything for premiums instead of asking to pay a hundred bucks a month if you're just full of just above the poverty level we're gonna cut that down to forty dollars a month they mean it's so much more affordable for people we need that under any circumstance most of the people who are uninsured and eligible for help are in the lower-income range because the ACA as wonderful as it is thank god it's there otherwise we'd have millions more uninsured it didn't provide enough help

33:54

for people and this is I'm hoping this will be an opportunity for us to step back and say let's fix this right now for the people who are struggling and having difficulty but let's fix this in a way that lays the groundwork for something better down the road so I mean that's okay I'll just stop chilly and I'm your mathematical Mathematica study really made it apparent that the where the people were not getting their uptake it was by far the most vulnerable people whose the people at the lower income

34:24

levels and it just seems to be that this is a call for just making sure people are covered in a way that is you know keeps the complicated proof from that right and I mean the other thing to highlight is there's only 40 percent of the people who are filing for unemployment that were even eligible for Cobra right the other people didn't necessarily have insurance through their jobs some of them may have had another form of health insurance coverage but there are a lot of vulnerable people

34:56

that are going to be without health insurance during during a pandemic if I'm gonna ask for Senator Durbin if you still on the line in congressman Scott I'm gonna two questions from our audience I'm gonna kind of combine them into one question that's really about congressional action the one is is the solution on the Cobra plan to cover 99%

35:26

and with that because because of this abortion ridiculousness and the other question that's related is before Co vyd we were having a congressional debate on other health care issues like drug prices and surprise billing and what is that what is the possibility the possibility for those at this moment do these get pushed to a back burner or does that come into

35:59

play on this I'm gonna go first because I have to leave Bobby if he could just make it very brief as I if I can I don't know if 99.9% is the answer to this we've done sillier things in the past if that's the cost of getting this done and I'll swallow hard and take it just speaking for myself and not for any Democrats others myself the second thing is we were tied up not before the kovat virus over the question of surprise billing and whether we're ever and get

36:31

back to it and it was the only element the only element of real reform that we thought had a chance in this divided Congress the house has done good work at a lot of different issues that just said on senator McConnell's desk when it comes to health care reform in the Senate we were down to surprise Boeing and we had reached an impasse on that so what do I think about the rest of the year not likely we're not doing any subset of business now as as we meet we're just barely limping along approving some of Senator McConnell's favorite judges so I'm

37:04

afraid that's the extent of what we've been able to do I'm going to have to jump off thank you for letting me say my piece on this enjoy third ways approach thank you so much he's counting votes on surprise billing and and they need over the Senate 60 rather than a simple majority I think surprise billing we were actually fairly close on if we had continued working on

37:35

it I thought we'd I was optimistic that we could come to some kind of conclusion but in this situation well you've got doctors coming not not only out of network from from out of state back to saying there's no telling what kind of bills they're going to live in and it would be nice to have a surprise billing protection it's my understanding that Medicare is not recognizing surprise bills they're going to pay were they going to pay and it's up to the doctors to take what the what's going on and

38:07

under I think the administration has said under the cares bill they have administrative when we decided if they're gonna pay average in-network fees and not quite people what people ask so I think there's a lot of agreement that the surprised billing is unfair and needs to be dealt with I have the same attitude on the abortion question if you're talking about 99.9 percent subsidy rather than 100 percent there's a old adage you don't want to

38:40

make the perfect the enemy of the good well 99.9 you know that's what it takes there's another thing that just generally we need to do we don't want to ignore and that is at some point we need to gradually get to the point where we get out of all these minutiae about how you get your health care and get to a Medicare for all I don't believe you can get there in one jump but certainly the house-passed Obamacare bill included a public option so that if

39:12

we're right that would have absorbed a significant portion of the market share and given the benefits of Medicare for all even if you never got there people would get the benefits of Medicare for all but we need to be getting to the point where we get a lot of the administrative expenses and reduce the administrative expenses and get to a more global availability of health care without having to jump through hoops when you lose your

39:44

jobs go through this portal or that portal at some point we need to just calm down and have a simple solution so where people don't have to worry about the healthcare Medicare for all is one way a public option on the Affordable Care Act I think is that clearly another particularly if you let employers start buying into the Affordable Care Act marketplace where they could purchase the public option I remember when it when it was first suggested a sitting

40:16

United States senator said then wait a minute the public option would constitute unfair competition well what does that mean it means that they could provide a better product at a lower price and that's unfair well if he thinks it can do it at a lower price better product it's time to just call a question let's vote that's what you want and so I think we need to be looking at those proposals as well with us further down the road the initiatives I talked

40:47

about are things that I think have a reasonable chance of passing you know in the next few weeks but long term we need to be looking at something that makes the health care available to everyone probably at some point not at a price because everybody needs health care and just make it a societal core cause just like what happens when you turn 65 thank you so much it's clear that we have to end the era where the availability and

41:16

the affordability of healthcare is a vulnerability for people it just needs to be something that they can clearly afford and that they have and the thing they just that Maggie where he just needs to disappear with folks we have reached the end of our time I want to say thank you to our guest Jillian Burke stand warned for their outside expertise on this and their advocacy as as well both academic advocacy and

41:49

organizational advocacy I want to thank chairman Bobby Scott for critically important Latian that has to be done and senator dick durbin as well this absolutely needs to be done this is a must have nada would like to have and I would like to thank everybody on the Xoom call who was able to join and ask questions thank you all so much thank

COVID, COBRA, & COVERAGE – Health care amid the crisis

Table of Contents

More in Lectorium

SMALL BUSINESS

SENIOR PRESCRIPTION COVERAGE

DENTAL COVERAGE

SENIOR VISION COVERAGE