Congressional Budget Office and the report issued earlier this week on the republican plan to replace the Affordable Care act. Do you believe the numbers . Guest i believe the congressional Budget Office. That is a very bipartisan office, nonpartisan. Republican ore democrat, we have to live with their estimates. 24ou say you will lose Million People are going to lose health care, i think that is serious. I wish we had it last week. I dont know if it would have changed votes, but we wouldve had more information with the republican bill doing what it is doing. Host listen to what your former colleague, the hhs secretary had to say about why he is skeptical about the cbo score. If you look at that, it is virtually impossible to have that number occur. We have not been able to read the report. Are you saying the office is not credible . There are 9 Million People on the exchange currently. Im not sure how they will get to 14 Million People uninsured that is what they say with only 8 Million People on the exchange. Individuals i assume that are on medicaid who will not take because theicy just mandate ended or something happened. It is just not believable is what we would suggest. Host congressman . Secretary price and i get along. We worked on health care when he was in congress. If you dont like the cbo numbers, you talk about how bad they are. The congressional Budget Office is where we get our estimates on what the impact is of legislation we are passing. I have disagreed with the cbo before just like secretary price said. His job as chair of the budget committee, who works with the congressional Budget Office, these are the numbers we have an think they are the ones we need to deal with. Host what do you like about what the republicans are proposing . Guest it is hard to find anything to like in a district like i come from. Our district is urban, overwhelmingly hispanic. Careg access to health through the Affordable Care act helped 20,000 of my constituents. If the state of texas would have expanded medicaid, 40,000 of my constituents would have had medicaid. This takes away any opportunity for expanding medicaid, but also eliminates the ability for most folks to get insurance, trading subsidies for a tax credit is not equal. Host why does it take away an opportunity for medicaid . Republicans are just decreasing the federal role that taxpayers have them playing in the expansion of medicaid on the state level and leaves it up to the states. Medicaid is a partnership between the state and the federal government. In texas, our partnership is 67 federal. Expansion to get those people who could not get subsidies because they dont make enough money, medicaid would have covered and that wouldve been 100 federal funding for the three years. The states who did not expand medicaid gave up that much money to go into our hospitals and doctors. The bill actually eliminates that in three years. Expandedentities medicaid, so they will have to find a way to come up with all the money instead of even going back to their percentage. In texas, i am disappointed we did not do it. One of my amendments last week was to give states that did not expand medicaid another chance to expand for the next couple of years. That was voted down on a partyline vote. Host lets hear from our callers about this health care debate. James in maryland, democrat. Caller mr. Green, thank you for taking my call. Guest good morning. Caller what i donunderstand is the flipflop as far as the tax credits. The Republican Party wants to take away over 800 million from poor people and older people, but give 800 mayan dollars to the rich people. This is unequal, its not fair. Im wondering what are they going to do if they say they are going to save money with 800 million . What about infrastructure and things we need to get done . Why do the rich have to get more tax breaks . Guest the build that the committee passed after 27 hours last week would save the federal government a lot of medicaid. Where that money would go would be subject to the ways and means committee. If they wanted to give tax cuts to the wealthy, but in our committee, i dont want to cut health care opportunity for people just for someone to get another tax cut. Willie,orida, independent. Caller how are you doing, sir . Guest im doing well. I am in houston. Caller evidently, they dont believe in math because they dont like the numbers. They liked it when they were knocking down the aca, when obamacare was being passed. It took about a year to pass it it would not add up. Bill,rse they had this eight years to write it. Everybody knew they were going to get rid of medicaid. It is supposed to get better, thats the big idea. Just because it costs a lot of money does not mean it is good. We are going to take 900 billion out of medicaid. The poor, the elderly, the shutins. We will take their money and give it to the rich. The bottom line, this is what republicans do. Rich. Ive tax cuts to the they take from the bottom and give to the top. Democrats take from the top and give to the bottom. Host we are going to leave your point there. What is host is that the socalled obamacare did . To give to the poor . Guest obamacare was 100 paid for. There were tax increases but also efficiencys builtin. Not a penny of the obamacare or itfordable care act was paid for. The reason it was paid for was because there were tax increases but also savings. A good example of medicaid expansion. Medicaid typically, two thirds of the money in medicaid goes to Senior Citizens and residential care. Two thirds of the people in the numbers are children. The gentleman is right. You are cutting from the seniors who use it for nursing facilities or from children who are very poor. Medicaid is not a federal program. It is a combination of the states and the federal. We gave more money from the federal government to encourage states to expand health care to some of the poorest people in our country. Host the cbo said well premiums would rise by 15 to 20 the first couple of years, they would decrease in 2020. Guest the biggest complaint now about the Affordable Care act was the premiums and the lack of competition. I have heard from hospitals and doctors and Insurance Companies who do not like what the bill came out of Committee Last week. It is a building opposition to it from the industry involved in health care because of the uncertainty of how this bill would work with tax credits instead of helping people go by insurance. Go buy insurance. Host illinois, republican. Caller the first thing i want to say is i think they should leave the president alone and let him go. They let obama go and let they should give everyone everyone should be equal is the way i look at it, no matter if you are democrat or republican or liberal. They ought to realize i am a Firm Believer in what the Golden Minerals says. Apparently the good lord wanted trump in. Lets let him deal and see what happens. Host congressman . Guest President Trump was elected. Electoral college got him elected. 2010,mber back in 2009 in president obama got elected and there were so many folks who are now saying please President Trump alone who were actually questioning the president , where he was born, his religion, you name it. Whatever President Trump is equaled orprobably maybe less than what president obama got into thousand nine. That does not make our country strong. Our country needs to Work Together no matter who gets elected resident. President trump is getting mild compared to what president obama got into thousand nine. All my republican friends, maybe you want to have given president obama a chance, but that did not happen. Host connie is in michigan, a democrat. Caller i am one of these people my husband and i are 64. I just retired and my husband is still working and im looking at this new plan and i am extremely upset because they are saying that we might have to pay 7,000 , year out of our income outofpocket. With obamacare, we got a raise and i dealt with it and we worked it out. We cant do that. That is a huge chunk of our retirement and whatever we have saved is going to be gone in no time, if we have any kind of a catastrophic illness. I just want to see it be a little more fair. My husband and i have worked 50 years and put into medicare and Social Security and now we find ourselves, even though we are very conservative in the money we spend, we cant plan ahead. We dont know what is going to happen because we got know what is going to happen with health care. Guest the lady is correct. A lot of folks retire early, sometimes at 55, but they have 10 years until they can get medicare. What this republican bill will do is allow or require seniors to pay as much as five to one compared to what we call the young and invincibles. If they pay. One dollar, paying fe dollars and what it is doing is taking money away from seniors for health care. Where is under the Affordable Care act, we had reasonable insurance that they could afford before medicare. That is another reason to oppose this bill. Host lets hear from craig in pennsylvania, independent. Caller hello congressman green. Thank you for your service. What i would like to see is, i would like to have congress be subject to obamacare. I think they should have the same Health Care Benefits that they would like the American People to have. Interrupt you, congress is under the Affordable Care act. I buy my insurance through the exchange in washington, d. C. It is outrageously expensive because i have doctors in houston, but also doctors in washington, d. C. , but members of congress and our staff by law are under the Affordable Care act. We have been paying those premiums. We dont get it for free, so we are under obamacare. Caller the other thing i would li to see, the veterans get the best health ca possible, under no circumstances should they have Less Health Care than what the congress gets. Guest i agree. I dont think anyone in the country should have worse health care than what members of congress get, but i agree with you. Our veterans deserve the best health care we can and in the hughes in houston, we have the va hospital that provides physicians just like they do for our other hospitals in the medical center, so our goal is to make sure our ba hospitals our va hospitals have the top quality of care. If it takes a member of congress to get that access for them, i am willing to do that. Host yesterday, Chuck Schumer of new york said republicans should pull this bill back, start over and then democrats would work with them. Where would you fix the Affordable Care act and work with republicans . Guest there are a number of things over the years. The Affordable Care act was passed in 2009 and 2010 and any law that Congress Passes or even your state legislators need to go back and fine tune it. The last six or seven years because republican majorities in the house, we were not able to fix the Affordable Care act and i know my republican colleagues like to call it obamacare, but the bill we passed last week i hope will be called trump care because it will hurt a lot of people. We need to look at it and say what can we do, there are states or plans that have only one Insurance Company, but there were plans before the Affordable Care act that had only one insurance carrier. We need to make sure we have competition in the states, not just in texas, but other states. There are a lot of things we could do to fix the Affordable Care act and then we could all own it instead of calling it obamacare or trump care. The democrats can dodge a lot of things, but they cant dodge the true budget. Debtu pull up the federal clock that shows 20 choice and dollars in debt since obama and the democrats took charge of the congress and the senate and he was the president , you guys went up almost 10 trillion in eight years. That is a financial fact. You try to explain to me how you guys did not spend almost 10 trillion in that amount of time. Nowhere in the constitution does it noted states Citizens Health care. You guys bought this thing and now you own it. That is your budget. You blew 10 trillion. Host lets have a congressman respond. Have the congressman respond. Guest every dime of the a portable care act was paid for. None of that went to the national debt. We raise taxes and cut spending and had alternative spending. You are right, there is nothing in the constitution that says health care. Do you think people ought to have medicare . Medicaid we try to provide health care for our constituents in the United States is behind other industrial nations that we compete with, whether it is europe or asia when it comes to having health care for our folks. I think it is part of our effort to have Quality Health care for everyone, whether it is through the Affordable Care act or medicaid or through medicare. Host the New York Times notes that the cbo analysis said the republican plan would reduce the federal deficit by 337 billion over the next 10 years. The wall street journal editorial notes that taayers will save 880 billion in medicaid, alone over the decade as states search for efficiency relative to current law, that is a 17. 6 cut. In 2026, medicaid will be 25 smaller than the cbo otherwise projects. When was the last time a Government Program that 25 smaller . The republicans are taking on entitlement reform in this legislation. Im glad the wall street journal talked about that because if you cut medicaid, you will cut the poorest people in our country from having health care. There can be reforms and medicaid and i would be glad to work with my colleagues on it. What they are doing in this bill medicaid andon send it to the states and the states could end up having to pay what the federal share would be. We were only transferring that money, that responsibility to the states. In the state of texas, we have one of the leanest Medicaid Programs in the country. We have a lot of near poor people who work and make too much money for medicaid but under the Affordable Care act, dont make enough money to get the subsidies. We can save a lot of money on the federal government, by just Cutting Health care for everybody. That is not a value our country should have. Host jimmy from virginia, republican. Caller i became republican after obama got out of office and i am concerned about medicare. This is money that we as retired people have been putting into the system for years and for the states to go in and take advantage of it is deplorable. My Health Insurance is paid up through the end of june because it is supplemental to what little medicare i get. They will not tell me what it going for because they dont know. The agent that i have through the state said the state would allow other Insurance Companies to ce across lines and be competitive, it would make it a lot more affordable for everyone in the country. Is this a concern or is this just a comment made by an Insurance Company . I dont know, but i was a democrat, but i did not like obamacare and it was not what i wanted or what i needed and i am not sure Going Forward we are going to do as people because ive i think our country spends too much money taking care of the rest of the world and not enough taking care of our own people. Medicare is a total federal program. The states have nothing to do with it except the states to license the Insurance Companies that sell you your supplemental. Those rates go up and down, but i paid medicare taxes literally in congress and all my life, but medicare and taxes do not cover a significant amount of medicare. Average, 104, the may be more a month. We all pay a tax for medicare, that so much medicare money comes out of general revenue, and that is what medicare is amount. You are right, medicare is important. It started in 1965 and there have been different ways to deal with it. We used to not have Medicare Advantage and now in our district, 40 of my constituents use Medicare Advantage. The need to know shop to make sure they are getting the best deal on anything. Medicare is on the greatest programs created and im glad you are benefiting from it, but it is not a state issue except for the supplemental insurance. About selling insurance across state lines, and the state of virginia has a policy and someone from texas buys a policy from virginia, i dont know how texas is going to if they are going to have a network for doctors in texas on a virginia policy. When people say they want to sell across state lines, you can already do that, but you have to be a national Insurance Company that complies with federal law, not just texas or virginia law. Host new york, susan, democrat. Caller i want to make a statement. I am a democrat turned republican and i would never look back again to the democrats. 360 million americans in this country. Every other country has free medical. What are you doing . Killing our people for money. That is a tremendous amount of people that can contribute every single month, but because democrats and republicans fight against one of the greatest president s in the world, which is donald trump, we have to look at the amount of companies that would come back to this country if we give free medical. How come you are not doing that . We should not have to pay for this medicine. The care that we get in this country is horrific. We rank Something Like 12 or 13 at giving medicine and you want us to take out of our pockets after you take our money for education, or anything that you can think of, you want to take our taxes and give us nothing back. We are going to demand free medical because we are entitled to it. We needed and you should give it. Take the democrats and just leave the United States of america. Host what do you think . Guest im proud to be a native texan and i am not going to leave the United States, but this is the first time i have heard of a republican who wanted socialized medicine. Free medical care. President trump has only been in office for the couple months, but there are a lot of president s before who expanded health care. President bush in 2003 supported expandingmedicare and prescription drugs. Before that, medicare did not pay for outofpocket prescription drugs. Texasent johnson from actually created medicare and medicaid in 1965 with congress. I want my constituents to have access to Quality Health care, no matter how we get there. That is my goal. The bill that was passed last week out of our committee will limit my constituents having access to health care. That is why i will fight against it. Host cindy in california, independent. Is how do weestion reconcile all the entitlement programs we are sharing with people that are illegal immigrants, and we are not taking care of the people that live here . Does the new program address that . The obamacare desperately hurt my family all around and i know we need labor and i know we need the different things, that we seem to be running up this horrific tab. There are 43 million poor people. We dont have health care. 17th in education, and i just dont see how we reconcile all of those things and i would how hengressman to thinks and what should we think host we will have the congressman do that. Guest let me touch on education. Education is typically a state and local issue. Federal money is about 10 of the average Public School budget. That is true in my district. We can help guide the states, but the folks that provide the money are the state legislators and your local school Borders School boards. Talking about health care, we do have entitlements. My republican colleagues call medicare and Social Security and entitlement and even medicaid, but Social Security, we pay into it. Not a dime of that money goes anywhere except to pay for the Social Security administration or to benefits to our seniors who qualify. Medicare is different, because we do have a tax for medicare, but that tax does not raise the amount of money that medicare costs, so we have to use general revenue that seniors pay on a monthly premium depending on their income. Medicaid is a federal state program and different states have different percentages and reimbursement from the federal government, but medicaid is run by the states with federal participation. The undocumented cannot get medicaid, cannot get Social Security or medicare. If you have an undocumented that has children, those children are u. S. Born and qualify for medicaid, but that is the only undocumented service you can get. I work on health care because i want to make sure my constituents have access to health care. District, our values our faith, family and your job and when you get a job, they want to know if your employer provides health care and if they dont, i want to make sure they have a way they can get health care for their family. Host congressman gene green, top democrat on the washington. Host at our table this morning, congressman rry buchson, republican of indiana, a member of the heah house energy and commerce