Need to freeze enrollment of medicaid expansion. it doesn t make any sense to continue to enroll people in medicaid who are healthy bill: cap medicaid. state-by-state situation. it is but it also it s not only not good insurance, second-rate insurance, but it raises the cost of private insurance because of the cost shifting. the other thing they need to do is put consumers more in charge, bill. they created new federal tax credit but it goes straight to the insurance companies. this bill should have been expanded health savings account concept where this tax credit can go into it. medicaid can put money into it. employers can, and eventually, even medicare can put money in it. people can use that to buy health care. bill: that is very confusing, senator. that is amazingly confusing. i know my audience. it sounds good but it is incredibly confusing and they have to simplify it.
Americans must buy health insurance is not a good thing. even though this the supreme court said is constitutionally okay, it really isn t up with the feds have no right to tell us to buy anythin. however, there are millions of americans are simply cannot afford health insurance on those folks should be able to receive government assistance. in order to make it efficient, that assistance should come from the states. through medicaid. also, health insurance companies should compete nationwide, that are derived down the premiums for working families. in addition, those americans who do not buy health insurance, who want who want to buy it, should have to pay a bit more for coverage after they get sick. simply not fair for someone to wait until they have cancer and then, want the same insurance rate as a healthy person. it is also not fair for the partisan press to say folks will lose their health insurance if those same people refuse to apply for medicaid or whatever. i mean, come on.
Medicare pays when theyo to the doctor. more extra costs for seniors on a tight budget. in addition, he calls to cap medicaid. medicaid insures 74 million people. more americans rely on medicaid to pay for nursing home care and home-based care than any other program. the program pays for more than half of all births and many more children. it s a source of mental health and substance abuse treatment, vital at a time when our communities are battling the opioid epidemic. i ll close with just two additional points. if confirmed, the head of hhs,
Only ideas in the mainstream are those that endorse the status quo and health care and our entitlement programs. in conclusion, i want to note that the overly partisan treatment of nominees and distortion of their records is a relatively new development on this committee. my hope is that we can begin to set a new standard here that we can all be proud of and that will work to reverse recent trends and a fair and open discussion of the nominee and his qualification. so with that, i ll turn to our distinguished ranking member, senator wyden. thank you very much, mr. chairman. colleagues, the american public has heard many promises about health care from the new administration. no cuts to medicare or medicaid. nobody hurt by aca repeal. insurance for everybody, much less expensive, much better.
Medicaid programs, do you have any insights into steps you think should be taken to address the multi-billion dollar prom of waste, fraud, and abuse in these programs. thank you, mr. chairman. nobody supports care being billed for that isn t needed or hasn t been provided. and this is one of those areas that i think we need to be very, very focused. i m certain that there are some bad actors out there. i think they re a minority, but there are some bad actors out there. and i m certain if we were to focus specifically on those bad actors in realtime, which is what happens in every other industry in our country, that when the realtime information is available and acted upon, instead of trying to determine whether every single incident of care is necessary, if we were to focus on those individuals that were the bad actors, specifically, i think we could do a much better job of not just identifying the fraud that exists out there, but ending that fraud. thank you.