The co-hosts of CBS This Morning on Thursday brought on two experts to actually discuss the problems with ObamaCare and the spiking premiums. Yet, there prescriptions are typical of liberals in the media and in politics: More Obamacare. Doctor David Agus and author Steven Brill appeared to rebut the downside of the President’s health care law.
After Charlie Rose wondered, “What’s going on? This is not what we thought would happen.” Agus retorted, “The principle was right. We need health care for people. It’s a right in our country and we should have a right to health care. And ObamaCare accomplished that.”
The two would not hear of alternatives or replacements:
GAYLE KING: So, what is the solution?
DAVID AGUS: Well, the solution is you don't throw it out, the baby with the bath water.
KING: Do you think it works for the most part?
AGUS: I think it's great to get 20 million people with health care.
Later, Agus offered the trope that health care isn’t “partisan.” Even Charlie Rose couldn’t accept that:
AGUS: Health care is not partisan. I think that is really the message.
ROSE: But politically, it's very partisan.
AGUS: It is partisan, because you have abortion, yes, no. It’s partisan because they want the term ObamaCare kicked out. No matter how you do it, you're not going to be able to remove health care from 20 million people. So the parties have to work together.
A transcript is below:
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CBS TM
11/3/16
8:32:39 to 8:41:21
8 minutes and 41 secondsNORAH O’DONNELL: The Affordable Care Act became recently a major topic on the campaign trail. Premiums for some plans will increase next year by average 25 percent. That’s more than three times this year's hike. In today' installment of "Issues That Matters," we look at the presidential plans for health care and the future for ObamaCare.
HILLARY CLINTON: I've also said I will defend and improve the Affordable Care Act and for me that includes giving Americans in every state the choice of a public option health insurance plan.
DONALD TRUMP: The Trump administration will immediately repeal and replace ObamaCare.
CLINTON: I am committed to making sure that people retain coverage, that they can afford and that is going to require taking on premium costs and deductible costs and prescription drug costs.
TRUMP: Our replacement plan includes health savings accounts, a nationwide insurance market where you can purchase across state lines, and letting states manage Medicaid dollars. So much better.
CLINTON: And I'll say something about the Affordable Care Act, which he wants to repeal. The Affordable Care act extended the solvency of the Medicaid trust fund. So if he appeals it, our medical problem gets worse.
TRUMP: A vote for Trump is a vote for America first and is a vote to protect Medicare and Social Security.
CLINTON: When we find unjustified spikes in the prices of longstanding drugs, we should slap penalties on companies trying to cheat people who need those drugs.
TRUMP: Reforms will also include cutting the red tape at the FDA. There are over 4,000 drugs awaiting approval and we especially want to speed the approval of life saving medications.
CLINTON: We are going to do what we can to catch up to the rest of the world. Affordable childcare, paid family leave, earned sick days.
TRUMP: By recapturing fraud and the improper payments in the Unemployment Insurance Program, we can provide six weeks of paid maternity leave to any mother with a newborn child whose employer does not provide the benefit.
CHARLIE ROSE: Joining us now to talk about these issues are Dr. David Agus and Steven Brill. David is a cancer specialist and professor, best selling author and CBS News contributor. He is on a blue ribbon panel of experts advising Vice President Biden's moon shot to provide new cures for cancer. Steve wrote a book on our high cost health care system called. America's Bitter Pill. We are pleased to have both of them here. David, let me begin with you. Costs are up. Premiums are higher. Insurance companies are backing out of participation in exchange programs. What’s going on? This is not what we thought would happen.
DAVID AGUS: The principle was right. We need health care for people. It’s a right in our country and we should have a right to health care. And ObamaCare accomplished that. Twenty million people now have coverage who didn't have coverage. But one of the premises is young people, who never get sick, would enter the system, contribute their dollars and it would subsidize the people. Because as you get older, you get more and more ailments and start to even out. These young people said, listen, “I'm just going to pay a fee. I don't want to enter because the prices are going too high. And so, when you don't have that angle, that seesaw tips and what we are starting to see now.”
KING: So, what is the solution?
AGUS: Well, the solution is you don't throw it out, the baby with the bath water.
KING: Do you think it works for the most part?
AGUS: I think it's great to get 20 million people with health care. And obviously, it works no matter who you talk to. But any policy needs to be refined. You can’t just put out a policy and it’s going to work from day one. Especially something as complex as health care.
KING: So, that’s ObamaCare. The challenges that still face ObamaCare and the opposition to that. But for — beyond that, the question of health care, which is one-sixth of the U.S. economy, premiums are going up for those of us that aren't even on ObamaCare. In my particular case, our premiums went up over 30 percent this year. How is that justifiable?
STEVEN BRILL: Well, it's justifiable if we continue to be the only country in the developed world that doesn't control the price of prescription drugs, that allows so-called non-profit hospitals to make profits and charging ridiculous prices and paying exorbitant salaries to its non-doctor executives. Let’s remember that all the headline of the exchange, those premiums involve maybe three or four percent of the country and ObamaCare was meant to give those people health insurance coverage. So, if you appeal Obamacare the only thing you're doing is taking away their coverages. The rest of us, ObamaCare nothing for except the reform of making sure that insurance companies could not exclude us if we had any kind of pre-existing condition.
O’DONNELL: And forced more insurance companies to cover more preventative things.
BRILL: Right. Which naturally has to raise the premiums. But let's remember one thing. Lets take a step back. The insurance companies, as miserable as they are when it comes to customer service, they are opaque, they are terrible. But they are on our side of this equation because they pay the same exorbitant bills that we pay. So talking about insurance reform does not get to the core issue of talking about the fact that health care costs too much money because the prices are higher than anywhere else in the country for every single thing we do with health care and everybody involved, except the doctors and the nurses, is making way too much money.
ROSE: Let me just — two things here. One, what is happening to health coverage in general? The point raised by Norah. But, secondly, just tell me one more time, is ObamaCare doing what it was promised to do.
BRILL: ObamaCare promised to do two things. It promised to make health care more accessible to more people.
ROSE: And it did that.
BRILL: By giving them subsidized insurance coverage. It did that. It also promised, kind of vaguely, because it was a promise they could never keep, that it was going to do something to control the cost of health care. It has nothing to do that. Frankly, most health care experts were saying that at the time. I was on this show a couple of years ago. My book came out and I said it's going to nothing to take care of the cost of health care.
KING: Do you see a solution?
BRILL: Yeah, I see a solution.
O’DONNELL: David, why aren't either of the candidates talking about, then, addressing the, addressing the rising costs of health care that affect everyone whether you're on ObamaCare or not?
AGUS: Let's be fair.
BRILL: Hillary has talked about it a lot.
AGUS: Let's be fair. Drug costs are less than 10 percent of health care.
BRILL: That's wrong.
AGUS: That's right. CDC —
BRILL: Drug costs on you personal bills are 10 percent. Drug costs in hospitalizations look like they are hospital costs. That is another 10 percent. So it's 20 percent.
AGUS: Whatever the numbers are, they are not all of health care. And what we are seeing is five percent of people spending 50 percent of the dollars of the affordable care act. So a number of people who are very ill are taking a disproportionate portion of the resources. One of the things we have to talk about and get to is get those people into programs so they don't spend so much and how can really reform health.
O’DONNELL: That's not just ObamaCare. That’s true in general.
ROSE: It's not new. We have known that.
AGUS: We have known that but seen the figures jump out at us and we need to address that.
BRILL: That’s because people are getting older and we still have the same systems as before, which is the more tests a doctor does, the more exams, the more everybody gets paid. And ObamaCare does have pilot projects that try to go after that. They haven't really been successful so far. But the core issue is we have to do something about the price of health care. It is a monopoly market. If you have a cancer drug that you need, you're going to buy it and someone is going to be forced to buy it no matter what it costs.
O’DONNELL: Just quickly, the issue of paid family leave and sick leave. Donald Trump supports that? Paid, that issue as well?
BRILL: Except in the companies he runs. He doesn't support it there.
O’DONNELL: But he has supported it as a candidate?
BRILL: He supports it as a hypothetical like a lot of other things.
O’DONNELL: Okay. Thank you.
AGUS: I think the summary really is that Affordable Care Act help people. Both candidates want to change it but this is a bipartisan issue. Health care is not partisan. I think that is really the message.
ROSE: But politically, it's very partisan.
AGUS: It is partisan, because you have abortion, yes, no. It’s partisan because they want the term ObamaCare kicked out. No matter how you do it, you're not going to be able to remove health care from 20 million people. So the parties have to work together.
BRILL: It’s not going to be repealed.
