CPAC 2014 - Healthcare after ObamaCare: A Practical Guide, Part 1

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Amy Frederick, President of the Sixty Plus Association. Good morning CPAC! You know, it's hard to believe, but this is the fourth CPAC since Obamacare was signed into law in March of 2010. So let me ask you, CPAC, are you better off today than you were four years ago? Well, that's odd. President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, MSNBC, they keep telling us the law is just great. In fact, they're so happy with it, they say that they're going to campaign and make Obamacare their main issue in the 2014 elections. I say, I hope you do keep it the main issue. And to the Democrats, if you like that campaign strategy, you can keep that campaign strategy. Because President Obama can spend his last two years in office with a Republican House and a Republican Senate. But this panel is not about politics. It's about understanding the impact of the many disasters and unintended consequences of Obamacare. In the past few years, it has impacted our healthcare in so many ways. The broken promises about keeping your doctor, keeping your health insurance, lowering the cost of premiums, no tax increases on the middle class, and as Obama says, bending down the cost curve of healthcare. And then there are the other issues, the Obamacare waivers for political cronies, the exemptions for Congress, IPAB, the IRS, the bailouts of the insurance companies, the Medicare cuts, the doctor shortages, the medical devices tax, the prescription drug tax, hospitals closing, the $2 trillion price tag, felons serving as navigators, attacks on our religious liberties, the job losses, the shrinking paychecks, part-time hours, the unilateral delays, the executive orders, the corruption, the missed deadlines, the phony enrollment numbers, and last but not least, the website, which makes flying toasters look like cutting-edge technology. And it's so dysfunctional, even the WikiLeaks hackers have trouble getting in. But aside from that, President Obama's right, it's working just great. So what do we do now is the question. How do we move forward? Does Obamacare cover treatment for baldness as Americans tear their hair out? And do we have better medical options other than getting cryogenically frozen until they come up with a cure for Obamacare? Four years in, it's clear to most Americans that Obamacare is to fixing health care, as Godzilla is to urban planning. It's been a devastating, unmitigated disaster that has hurt Americans far more than it has helped. But with our distinguished panel, we hope to finally offer some help and some answers. It's an interactive session today, so we want your questions for our panelists. If you can, send them to atCPACnews with the hashtag FrederickPanel. My last name is F-R-E-D-E-R-I-C-K Panel. We'd love to have your questions. First up, the Honorable Tom Price, U.S. Representative from Georgia's 6th District. An orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Price spent more than 20 years caring for patients, which helped him formulate and introduce into Congress his Obamacare alternative. He's been a leader. His alternative focuses on patient-centered care instead of government mandates. The Honorable Ken Blackwell is a former ambassador, a prolific author, and an experienced public servant with a distinguished political career. Among his accomplishments, Ambassador Blackwell served as Mayor of Cincinnati, Treasurer and Secretary of State for Ohio, Undersecretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. He is a best-selling author, a visiting professor at the Liberty University School of Law, and a national commentator. Last but not least, Alex Smith. She's the chair, the national chair of the College National Republican Committee. She's a recent magna cum laude graduate of the Catholic University of America where she earned a degree in politics. Alex is already an accomplished conservative activist who has assisted many winning campaigns. Currently, she's attending law school at Seton Hall in New Jersey, and she's a diehard fan of her beloved Eagles and Phillies. Okay, let's get started. I'm a mom of three kids, and as a mom of three kids, I'm never short on bedtime stories. I have tons of them. For my kids, the scarier the stories, the better. But the thing about the stories that I tell my kids is that at the end, they always feel safe being at home with me. Unlike most Americans, we have Obamacare, and those horrors get very scary stories. In the end, there is no safe ending. Things just keep getting worse and worse. Congressman Price, can you start us off with some horror stories, some stories of constituents or things that you've been hearing? Thanks, Sammy. Thanks to CPAC. You know, they wanted to have the government control all the health care. I don't know what could go wrong, right? I mean, it's an absolute disaster. Let me touch on two specific issues. One is economic, and the other is health care. I was a physician for over 25 years taking care of patients. Y'all know what the 29ers and the 49ers are? Not the San Francisco 49ers. The 29ers are the folks who've been reduced from their hours at work from 40 hours a week down to 29 hours a week so that their employer can get out from under the incredible burden of Obamacare. The 49ers are those that have decreased, the employers decreased their employees under 50, because 50 is the limit for when you get exposed to the burdens of Obamacare. Now, what does that mean in the real world? I've got a car dealership in my district, had 168 full-time employees 40 hours a week six months ago. Now it has two. Wow. Two full-time employees. 166 individuals moved to part-time. That's economic destruction. So it's not just harming people's health care lives. It's harming their economic lives. Again, as a physician, when I talk to my physician colleagues back home and ask them how they're doing, they're looking for the doors. We are going to have a huge decrease in the number of physicians in this country who are able to practice because the federal government is coming in and telling them exactly what they must do, and that's not what they went to school and got their training for. They believe that patients and families and doctors ought to be making medical decisions, not Washington, D.C. And that's the way it ought to be. Amen. America is an exceptional nation, and at the root of our exceptionalism is the fact that our national philosophy celebrates the primacy of the individual and the supremacy of God. President Obama and Obamacare has tried to keep a promise that he made five days before he was elected when he said that we were a week away from fundamentally transforming America. To transform America, you have to go right at that national philosophy. So Obama's philosophy celebrates the primacy of the collective good and the supremacy of the central or federal government, and he's had to attack religious liberty. So my horror stories can be found in the stories of the Little Sisters of the Poor, where they, in their celebration of life, oppose any drug that kills babies. That is a matter of their conscience. The Obama administration defending Obamacare and advancing that policy is going after the Little Sisters of the Poor. You take Hobby Lobby, a business organization that has not only added value to our economy, but has celebrated what America is all about, and that is the free enterprise system. Folks of good conscience that have delivered quality health care to their employees. Obamacare disrespects their exercise of a free conscience, and it's going after Hobby Lobby. The horror story here is that there is a basic disrespect for what frames our exceptionalism. And if I can just say this, the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence says, we hold these truths to be self-evident. My dad used to say that's a very sophisticated way of saying any knucklehead should be able to get this. But at the end of the day, at the end of the day, in that paragraph, it establishes that our human rights, our fundamental rights are gifts from God, not grants from government. And so the horror story that I share with you that many businesses and business owners of conscience is that there is a direct attack that people are starting to experience in their everyday lives on the most fundamental thing that makes this an exceptional nation. Technical difficulties. You know, we have the tweeting down and everything else. Is it on now? No, okay. Can we get a mic from backstage for Alex? A handheld? Here. You can share mine. There you go. Can we share? That'll work. Okay, it's working. Yay! Okay. Is this working? Okay! Woo! Well, thank you so much for having me here. As I mentioned before, it's a great honor to sit up here with two distinguished gentlemen who have fought hard for the conservative movement, and I've looked up to being a young person in the movement. I want to give a special shout out to my college Republicans in the audience, many of whom traveled very far to be here. And I think in terms of personal stories, young people are the most affected by this law. I mean, by the president's own estimates, 40% of the enrollees have to be young and healthy in order to subsidize the old and the sick. So young people are really feeling the pain on this one, and I see it just in everyday stories with my friends. You know, a lot of whom are independent contractors, do their own kind of work, and purchase these so-called junk plans that they self-selected, that they put a lot of research and a lot of time into, only to have them canceled and have their premiums go up. I've seen a lot of young people have their hours cut at the part-time jobs that they have to put themselves through school and to help out with expenses. I mean, it's so sad to see every day, you know, someone posting a cancellation letter, someone posting something that they weren't expecting based on the president's promises. And young people value authenticity more than anything, and they know when they've been misled. And I strongly believe that they see that the president was not truthful when he said that if you liked your plan, you could keep it, and that premiums would not rise for young people. So, you know, these are, the stories that are coming out of this are especially affecting young people, a lot of whom don't have a voice, you know, in the back rooms of lobbyists and that sort of thing. And didn't vote for Obama either. Let's consider, let's talk about Senator Reid for a second. I just can't let this comment go. Last week, says, quote, despite all the good news, there's plenty of horror stories being told. All are untrue, but they're being told all over America, end quote. I lost my dad to a year-long battle with cancer just before CPAC last year. And I can't imagine sitting at home listening to Senator Reid with my dad dying in his bed and the violated feeling that I would have of disgust because my dad's story wouldn't be real. Let's start with you, Congressman Price. What are your reactions to that? Well, it's absolutely astounding that the majority leader of the United States Senate could make such a statement and mislead and deceive the American people in such a way. They've got to control costs from their perspective. There are wonderful ways to control costs from our perspective, if you allow, again, patients and families and doctors to be making these decisions, not having Washington, D.C. determining who gets care and who doesn't and picking winners and losers. One of the ways that they're doing this is to narrow the panels, and we're beginning to see it in places all across the country. In Atlanta, there are three major hospital systems that aren't in the exchange, and it's not because they were offered a price for the exchange and they turned it down or it's not because they made an offer to the exchange and the exchange turned them down. No, they weren't even asked. Three major hospital systems. So the way that they're going to control costs is to limit the places where one can get treatment. So as a patient, you're not going to be able to go to necessarily the hospital or the clinic or the place where you have had your treatment, and then they're going to limit the doctors and the providers that you're able to see. Now, where that hits, where the rubber hits the road there is exactly what you talked about. Individuals with diseases like cancer, individuals who fought and worked as hard as they can to find somebody who will care for them in the way that they believe to be most appropriate, and that's where the decision ought to be. And that person may or may not and most likely will not be included in these exchanges, which means we are cutting off all sorts of innovation and opportunity for every single American to have the kind of care that they want. It's incredible what they're trying to do. It's time for us to wake up from this nightmare. Absolutely. Alex, Ken, can you? I mean, I think in terms of responding to those who are really feeling the effects of this law in the last stages of their lives and being told by the government what they can and cannot have. You know, we have these ideas of ration care and other sort of horrific parts of this law. And I think that young people will especially start to see this as our parents age, as our grandparents age. We're going to see these run-ins with the health care law. We're going to see the best health care system in the world be transformed into something that's very ugly and very much something that we hadn't expected growing up. It's amazing. The Democrats are willing to listen to Vladimir Putin, but Obamacare patients are liars. It's unbelievable. And I think I would recommend that every legislature at the state and federal level just continue to hold their own town halls and let the people speak truth against Harry Reid's false narrative. Look, at the end of the day, Obamacare is unworkable, unaffordable, and unfair. And more people are realizing this in their everyday experience working through the bureaucracy. I would suggest that Harry Reid is speaking a false narrative. It is a desperation narrative because he understands that the American people are rejecting this power grab for one-sixth of our economy. But more importantly, it actually limits consumer choice, and it ratchets down the quality of health care that we have in our country. Ladies and gentlemen, we have the best health care system in the world. It is not perfect, but it is perfectible, and we don't need to trash it, junk it, or eliminate it. And that's what Obamacare is attempting to do. Congressman Price, let's talk secrets a little bit. We love secrets in Washington. And your colleagues, you vote. You talk to some of the Democratic colleagues in the halls, on the Hill. Are they in denial like Harry Reid? Are things as rosy as we see the pundits on television talk about? Or are they nervous about this? I mean, what are the... Well, it's interesting, Amy, because if you talk confidentially to friends on the other side of the aisle who voted for this thing, many of them can't believe how it has been rolled out. And they are so thankful for the president to be delaying things and pushing things off for now over 40 times. He's now pushed the employer mandate and the individual mandate off until after the 2016 election. Oh, surprise, surprise. Yeah, that just happened. So what the president has admitted and what these folks are admitting is that this law doesn't work. And as Ken said, it doesn't work across the board. It doesn't work for patients. It doesn't work for docs. It doesn't work for employers. It doesn't work for employees. The majority of the states know it doesn't work for them. And at this point, the federal government is beginning to wake up and recognize it doesn't work for the federal government from a financing standpoint. So we've got to move. We've got to shift to saying there is a better way. There's a better solution. There are real solutions. There are American solutions that stick to those fundamental principles that made us the greatest nation ever. And we can apply those principles to health care so that we get back to that system where patients and families and doctors are making medical decisions. And I have a question from Vern in the audience, and this is going to go right to you then. What are some solutions? Give us a minute on your bill because you've been a leader. So can we dig into that a little bit? If you step back and you think about what principles we all ought to have on health care, not ought to have, but have, everybody talks about the top three. Affordability. You need a system that's affordable. You've got to have a system that's accessible to everybody. You've got to have a system of the highest quality. Many people add more to those. I add three more. Responsiveness. You've got to have a system that's responsive. Doesn't do you any good to walk through the front door if there's nobody behind the desk, which is what the Obamacare system is going to be. We've got to have the highest amount of innovation in the world. If we lose the innovative edge that we've had for generations, we will not have the high quality, and then we've got to have choices for everybody, choices that they select, not that the government selects. So affordability, accessibility, quality, responsiveness, innovation, and choices. Every single one of those principles is violated by Obamacare. So how do you get to the right solution? H.R. 2300 is the bill that we've put forward. It makes it so that everybody has the financial feasibility and incentive to purchase the coverage that they want for themselves and for their family, not that the government forces them to buy. You can solve the insurance challenges, portability, and preexisting by making it so that everybody owns their coverage, regardless of who's paying for it. So they change their job, they lose their job, they just take it with them. Preexisting illness. Nobody in this country ought to be priced out of the market because they get a bad diagnosis. That's a holdover from a bygone era and a bad system. That's a system that may recognize government and insurance companies, but it doesn't have patients at the focus. The way that you solve that one is relatively simple. You just make those people that are truly at risk, that's in the individual and small group market, look like everybody else from an insurance standpoint. You allow them to pool together with millions of others. So you get the purchasing power of millions. Then anybody's adverse health status doesn't drive up the cost. And then we can save hundreds of billions of dollars with appropriate end to the practice of defensive medicine. That means robust lawsuit abuse reform to take 600, 800 billion dollars that we're wasting right now in our nation and end that practice so that we can save that money and use it for the provision of services for others. Thanks. Let's talk unintended consequences. And Ken, I'm going to start with you. Former Congressman J.C. Watts used to say that we needed to create a Department of Unintended Consequences for all the bills that were passed. And I think that Obamacare ranks up in the Unintended Consequences Department. So let's talk about unintended consequences. Probably from their standpoint, they've assumed, they have assumed that the American people are asleep at the switch. And what CPAC and organizations that are affiliated with this forum know that American people are wide awake and we are brighter than the administration gives us credit for. Look, if you go back over the whole span of human history and you look at authoritarian regimes, totalitarian regimes or big welfare states, they've had to do a couple of things. They've had to destroy the family and they've had to silence the church. We are not going to be silent. We are ready to push back. And that is perhaps an unintended consequence for Barack Obama. Senator Grassley. Thanks for having me. Unintended consequences. Well, first, I think that Harry Reid has been watching the CPAC schedule because when he saw that this was scheduled to start with you as the moderator, Amy, at 11.15, he scheduled a vote at 11.20. And I said, I'm going to be here to talk about the truth about this health care law. And you're hearing true stories all around the country. As Tom and I was listening on the live stream on the way over here. But there are incredible unintended consequences of the health care law. Tom, you talked about some of them and Ken about loss of jobs, cut back in wages. I mean, it's affecting reading teachers, 911 folks, people that are working. It's hurting middle class Americans all around the country. There's a lot of money for IRS agents in this, but not enough money to train the physicians to take care of the patients. You just referred, Ken, to the good book, the Bible. There's the proverb, physician, heal thyself. Obamacare is patient, heal yourself. You're on your own in many ways. People are going to be going to healthcare.gov and instead it's going to be a direct link to WebMD. They're going to call a friend, check the whole audience if you want an answer. I mean, these are the problems with this. There just aren't enough people to take care of the patients. And it's actually making things worse. Those are the unintended consequences. If we look for a positive, the positive is that with American ingenuity, with apps, with understanding of more about us, we're going to go patient-centered with the technology, even though the healthcare law goes more government-centered, which is not helping patients get better. Thanks. Alex, I want to make sure that we talk a little bit about the college students because this is important. 2008, they were not a voting age to vote for President Obama, but they voted for him overwhelmingly in 2012. So is Obamacare, is this going to change their mind, the Obamacare? Is the GOP going to use it as a tool, as a recruiting tool for college students? Give us some thoughts on that. Sure. So in 2013, the College Republican National Committee actually did a fair amount of research on youth voting behavior in the 2012 elections. It's a 90-page report. You can find it on our website, crnc.org. But what we found in 2012 was that young people weren't necessarily sold on the president again, and they're not sold on liberal policies, but they didn't see an alternative with us. They didn't see us as putting forth new ideas to which they could relate. And going forward, we need to make sure that we are communicating in a positive way what those ideas are, where younger voters are. I'll give you an example that I think mirrors the healthcare debate at this point. In 2012, of course, and it's still the case, the economy is terrible for young people, and it was as of Election Day in 2012. Youth unemployment was double the national average, 3 in 10 millennials moving back in with their parents. Young people not entirely sold on the idea that the president was improving the economy, but they still voted for him to the tune of 5 million more votes over Governor Romney. Where is the disconnect there? The disconnect comes from not having a positive vision communicated directly to them. And in fact, in the focus groups that we did, the number one word associated with the president and the economy was trying. The president gets an A for effort, wins the election. Why? Because he communicated with young people. He communicated where they are with a positive message. And young people respond to that. The same is true of healthcare. We have to stand up and say no to things that are harmful for this country, especially for the things that this generation will pay for. But at the same time, it can't be the only thing that we say. And again, going back to the economy in 2012, that's really all we did say. We said no to President Obama. We said no to his policies. But we didn't really offer an alternative. So we need to offer that alternative, and it's important that we offer it where young people are. That means going online, you know, talking about digital strategy. There are a couple of panels that talk about that here. But it especially means going to campus and having that courage to do so. If we're not communicating our ideas on campus, we leave it on the shoulders of college Republicans out there to do it for you. So, you know, candidates and campaigns, we need to be mindful. We need to do a better job. Yes, of going out there and helping out those CRs get our message out on campus. Absolutely. Thanks. Senator Brasso, I want to go to you. Pass the bill before we see what's in it. Obamacare, the bill like an onion. We peel the layers of the onion, we cry. We peel the onion, we cry some more, we cry some more. What are the bombshells that we haven't peeled away those layers? What are we going to see that has not yet come out, that has not been covered by the media? It's a couple of things. One with the cuts to Medicare Advantage. I think it's going to be harder and harder for seniors to get to see a doctor. It's going to get harder to get to a doctor. You see hospitals that are just not wanting to take this. And in New Hampshire, what is it, 10 of the 28 hospitals, people are not included in any of the exchanges. You talk to Kelly Ayotte, the senator from New Hampshire, who to me is a Republican superstar. She will tell you that, you know, there's a hospital there where the chief of staff of the medical staff can't even go to their own hospital. So you're going to have it harder and harder to get care. People are going to have to go further away, harder to get a doctor. The president is desperately trying not to fix the health care law, but to save the election. I mean, the headline on the Hill yesterday, new Obamacare delay to help midterm DEMs. Not to help patients, not to help providers, not to help taxpayers of this country, but to help midterm DEMs. Even the New York Times this morning put it as it relates to the elections only, because they don't want this next group of six million people to get cancellation letters. They were going to be coming this October had the president not done one more of his now over two dozen delays. There are two things I think that we need to look at, because I think they're going to be huge this year. One is the insurance companies, which haven't gotten the pool of young people to sign up, so their insurance mix, their rating mix isn't as they thought it was going to be, and they have to publish in April, May, June what their rates will be for, what their premiums and deductibles will be for next year. Those are going to be astronomical, and the American people are going to sit up and take notice once again. The second is, and we haven't talked about it at all, but it's the whole issue of data breach. We know that there are folks out there right now as we speak trying to take personal information, health care information away from the sites that are available right now. We haven't heard any of those data breaches yet. It's only a matter of time, and I believe that that assists us then in providing that education, that teaching moment for young people and all Americans to be able to see that this is what big government looks like in health care. It's just a poster child for big government, and it's not what the American people want, and that's why we've got to all take part in making certain that we're talking to our friends and relatives and neighbors and coworkers and everybody about there are positive alternatives, real solutions that recognize the fundamentals of this great nation. I think it's very important that those who are listening to this panel understand that the greatest threat to American exceptionalism in the face of Obamacare is that we go silent or we throw up our hands because we think that the problem's too big, the federal government's too big for us to put them in place. Those who have that attitude have never been in a dark room with one mosquito. We are not too small. We can win this, but it's going to take the forums like we create through the Family Research Council and other organizations that I am affiliated with where we're speaking directly to people and with people, and we're allowing them to ventilate their frustrations with the bureaucracy and the ineffectiveness of this government healthcare model that the Obamacare represents. So we need to speak out, speak up, and make it a big issue as we go forward, not only in 2014 but 2016. Absolutely. Allie. So 56% of young people in the latest poll disapprove of the president's signature achievement here, and again, as I said before, we have to communicate our positive vision, communicate visions like the congressman's and the bills that are out there to young people as an alternative. But at the same time, there has never been a more ripe opportunity to capture young people, especially on this issue. We can communicate that positive alternative, and I think that speaking to that fear of talking about this issue, I think for a lot of people, talking to young people is sometimes a daunting thought, but they are actively seeking this alternative, and let's capture them in 2014 and harness that energy for 2016. Absolutely. We're in our final two minutes, so I want to do a lightning round, 30 seconds each. Does Obamacare, is it here to stay or will it be defeated? If it's defeated, how? At the ballot box or under its own weight? Senator Barrasso. Really, the key is this November election. We need to take a majority of the United States Senate. We need six seats. We need your help. There are 13 races in play, and you can make a difference in each and every one of those states. With your help, we will eliminate this. Awesome. Alex. Young people won't buy something they can't afford. That's the end of Obamacare. There you go. Engage. We all have to advocate full engagement. There's a fault line that stretches across this country, and on one side of that fault line are those of us who love liberty, and on the other side are the advocates of big government. We cannot go to sleep. We cannot stop fighting. We can defeat Obamacare, and we will. I think we will as well. This simply doesn't work, and so it's going to collapse of its own weight. My fear is that it will collapse in dribs and drabs as opposed to in one fell swoop, and the problem that we've got now is we're past the sign-up phase. We're in the implementation phase. Real people are getting hurt in real ways, and that's destructive to the American character. So in three to five years, I don't think you'll see this system in place. I think you'll see a completely different system. I don't know what that system will be because I think the other side is going to be fighting for a single payer. What we need to be fighting for is that patient-centered health care, again, where patients and families and doctors are making those medical decisions and getting Washington, D.C., out of the exam room and out of the operating room. All right. Part two coming up, and thanks for your time. Great.