Despite Calling It a 'Lie,' Rand Paul Caught Repeatedly Supporting a
$2,000 Medicare Deductible
LOUISVILLE A new video today catches Rand Paul repeatedly supporting
a $2,000 Medicare deductible on Kentucky seniors despite his claims
just last week that such a statement was a 'lie.' To view the new
video, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La84KwzOfsE
The video, released today by Attorney General Jack Conway's campaign,
shows a series of videos where Rand Paul specifically says that
seniors should have to pay higher deductible.
John Collins said, 'Rand Paul believes that Kentucky seniors should
pay a $2,000 Medicare deductible. Kentucky seniors don't think a
$2,000 deductible is an option, and neither does Jack Conway.'
To view the new video, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La84KwzOfsE
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ON BACKGROUND - RAND PAUL SAYS WE NEED TO RAISE HEALTH INSURANCE DEDUCTIBLES
Paul Believed That Seniors Should Have High Deductibles for
Prescription Drugs. On a panel discussing government subsidization of
prescription drug costs, Paul remarked, 'You have to have a connection
between the consumer and the price of an object. If you separate the
consumer from the object the price doesn't matter anymore so you
overuse it [...] So you don't want low deductibles, you want high
deductibles.' [Kentucky Tonight (Video Unavailable Online), 7/24/00,
37:15]
Paul Called For Higher Deductibles For Health Care Insurance. On a
Kentucky Tonight panel about health care reform, Paul said: 'In our
country primarily people get access to health care through insurance
and that is part of the problem. We have when you go to the doctor
you don't pay directly for your doctor's services. You're insurance
company pays for it. So because you have this third party in the
middle, no one really cares if you have a low deductible, which most
of these plans are, about the price of things. So the price goes up
indiscriminately because nobody is there to barter down the price. The
rest of the marketplace works because you buy a computer or you buy a
loaf of bread you pay cash. What we need is higher deductible plans
and people paying more cash as they go into the doctor and then what
we'll have is, the prices will level off and come down. Computers are
half the price they were 10 years ago. Why does capitalism work for
computers and not for health care? It is because you have a third
party system paying for the health care and not the patient paying
when they go in.' [Kentucky Tonight, 7/12/04, 5:15]
Paul Recommended $2,000 Medicare Deductible to Solve Waste and
Inefficiency in Health Care. While discussing waste, fraud, and
inefficiency in health care at a town hall, Rand Paul said: 'There is
waste in medicine and when they say it's huge and it's fraud, I don't
believe that. The waste is - is that you come to me, and you're on
Medicaid, I have no incentive to undercharge you. I will do what the
law complies, but there's no incentive for me to undercharge you. The
incentive is to charge you the maximum that I can legally charge you.
And that's not that I'm an awful person, but that's the incentive of
every physician is not to undercharge you, but to charge the maximum
they could possibly charge you and justify. And you're not paying for
it so you're not quibbling about it. But if you came into me and you
were on Medicare but you had a $2,000 deductible, then there's a
negotiable price. So where we get the abuse of the system is you go
into your physician once you met your deductible, you and your
physician are on the same team. And if you say let's get an MRI, then
let's get a CAT Scan, let's get all this, it doesn't matter to anybody
because nobody's paying for it. Somebody out there, the taxpayer is.
So there's huge amounts of over-utilization, defensive medicine, and
all these things going on, but they're because the way the system
works. You aren't participating and driving, the consumer isn't
driving savings. Physician doesn't care about savings because you're
not paying for it and you not looking at him and saying how much it
that gonna cost.' ['Rand paul Town Hall', 9/26/09, 57:05]
Paul Said Prices Need To Fluctuate, And We Need Higher Deductibles.
When discussing the problem of price controls in health care, Rand
Paul said the following: 'If we double the supply of anything, the
price should go down, but because most health prices are fixed, when
you double, it most if you talk to a policy wonk on health care
they'll tell you doubling the amount of hospitals will double the
amount of prices we pay or make it increase by one point five. So you
need to do that, but then you need to open up prices to fluctuate. The
only way you open up prices to fluctuate is you have to have higher
deductibles and that may mean changing the tax code to encourage
people to get bigger deductibles, it may mean tax credits so people
can cover their first $2,000 through a tax credit, you know there's
all kinds of ways we can help people and encourage people to go to
these plans.' ['Rand paul Town Hall', 9/26/09, 1:07:28]
Paul: Paying Higher Deductibles is the Answer to Medicare. Asked how
to deal with Medicare, Paul said one measure to address impending
bankruptcy is making patients pay more out of pocket. 'With Medicare,
I think one of the answers is we will have to maybe pay more directly
when we go to the doctor with higher deductibles. But the trade off is
for the consumer, if you had a higher deductible, we get rid of price
controls and doctors fees will have to be competing on a day-to-day
basis and hopefully competition can drive down prices.' ['Rand Paul
WYMT Issues and Answers Part 3 of 4', uploaded 9/29/09; 9:27]
Paul On Higher Deductibles: 'I'm Willing To Take A Risk Because I
Think It's The Right Thing To Do.' While discussing his reasoning for
the need for higher deductibles and the history of health care in
America, Rand Paul said the following: 'The hard part is how do you
present this on national TV with, I mean, what's going to happen to me
in a statewide race if I tell people I think the Medicare deductible
is going to be higher. Am I going to be hooted out of the room? I
dunno, I'm willing to take a risk because I think it's the right thing
to do and the other answer is to become like Canada. And so, uh, and I
think if we present it in a way that it's not we just want to be mean
to be people, I want to do it because I think the price will be lower
and you'll pay less if competition can drive your prices down.' ['Rand
Paul Town Hall,' 9/26/09, 27:28]
Paul Suggested $2,000 Deductibles For Medicare To Encourage Price
Fluctuation. While discussing health care reform proposals, Rand Paul
said: 'What we have to admit is that the current system, the status
quo, isn't very good either. We do have a semblance of capitalism. We
have private ownership by physicians I can make a profit but we don't
have one key component of capitalism, and that is freely fluctuating
prices. Prices don't fluctuate. For example, half of what I do is
government, so prices are fixed. If you come to me for eye surgery and
you're 65, I charge the same rate as everyone in the whole country.
But even the 40 percent of what I do that is health insurance, that's
private insurance, if you're on Blue Cross and you're on Blue Cross,
every doctor in the whole country or within my region charges the same
price. We need freely fluctuating prices, which means higher
deductibles but then lower have prices fluctuate. For example and
this is hard for people to believe but if you made the Medicare
deductible, $2,000, but then allowed prices to fluctuate, if Medicare
pays me $140 for a complete exam, it may be that, through competition,
it's $90 within a year because it works when the consumer can choose
his service according to price.' ['Pt 4/6 Freedom Watch Napolitano Ron
Paul Rand Paul Daniel Hannan Peter Schiff & more 8-5-09', 8/12/09,
4:24]
Paul: People In Their 20s Should Have $2,000+ Health Insurance
Deductibles. Asked how he would reform the health care system to make
coverage more widely available for those with pre-existing conditions,
Paul advocated long-term coverage plans with high deductibles for
young people. He said: 'One of the ways is through long-term
contracts. Then when you're sick, you don't get dumped because you
have a long-term contract. I would suggest getting insurance sold to
individuals when you're 20 or 21. The trade-off is you would pay for
most of you expenses. You would have a 2 or 3 or 4 or even $5,000
deductible, but your premiums would be much less. Insurance is
incredibly cheaper with higher deductibles. They realize you're not
going to use it and that's why their executives make $150,000,000 a
year. They understand the actuarial tables and that for the most part,
you're not going to use it [...] To get multi-year contracts, you have
to change some tax rules, you have to allow competition across state
lines so that some of these products will be developed. Then we have
to look specifically and see if there are any reasons or regulations
that prevent multi-year policies from developing. [Lorie Settles, US
Senate hopeful Rand Paul visits Middlesboro, The Middlesboro Daily
News, 1/26/10]
Paul: Medicare is Socialism, Said We Need Deductibles Raised To
$2,000. 'What's the problem in medicine? No price fluctuation. If
you're over 65 and you go to a doctor in this country, you pay the
exact same price with every doctor in the whole country. So when they
want to blame medicine and blame that on capitalism, we have to be
smart enough to say, we don't have capitalism, we already have
socialism. Medicare is socialized medicine. People are afraid of that,
because, oh, you'll say you're against Medicare. No. I'll say we have
to do something different. We can't just eliminate Medicare, but we
have to figure out how to get more to a market-based system. It's
counterintuitive to a lot of people, but you have to pay for things if
you want prices to come down. So you really need higher deductibles.
And the real answer to Medicare would be a $2,000 deductible. But try
selling that one in an election. But that's the real answer is, you
have to pay for things. And when you do but if you also get rid of
price controls. So you raise the deductible, you get rid of price
controls, and you allow more competition, and you may have to allow
more competition from other parties nurse practitioners, we already
have some, pharmacists. There have to be ways to allow medicine to
come down.' The Associated Press confirmed that this event these
remarks took place in June 2009 in Lexington, Kentucky. ['Rand Paul
Speaks To Conservative Leaders in Lexington Part 3 6-16-09', 6/16/09,
5:30; Rand Paul rallies Tea Party with Kentucky GOP Senate primary
win, Associated Press, 5/19/10]
Paul Said The Problem With Health Care Is That No One Is Asking About
The Price Of Services, Suggested $2,000 Deductibles. 'The ideal health
insurance would be that you buy your health insurance when you are
twenty, where you would have a thirty, maybe even 45-year plan. And
when you're sixty-five, then you'd flip over and your plan would be
twenty percent. Medicare would be the other. What would happen then we
wouldn't have a problem with pre-existing conditions for the most part
because almost everybody is healthy at twenty. Not everybody, but
probably 99% are healthy at twenty and they'd buy it without any
pre-existing conditions. You'd have a long term rate. But the other
beauty of it is, you would have higher deductibles. But we all have to
figure out how we would explain this to the public that higher
deductible are a good thing. I have a $5,000 deductible. People say,
'oh, you're wealthy, you can do that.' My employees have $1,500
deductibles. Now, I'll give you a quick example of how I save money on
that. I was at a big clinic with sixty doctors and we had health
insurance that was the gold standard and they gave everything with
very low deductibles. It cost $12,000. I paid ten as an employer, but
the employee still had to pay two. But we had lower deductibles. My
employees that came with me, you've got a choice. You can stay with
the big clinic and keep your insurance or you can come with me and
have $1,500 deductibles but I'll give you a $2,000 raise. And I'll pay
your whole premiums. I play all of my employees premiums. I give them
$2,000 more, but they have to be responsible. What we've done is pull
capital- bring capitalism into the marketplace. So if we all had
higher deductibles, imagine the whole country with a $2,000
deductible. What would happen as the marketplace would develop? In my
business, nobody cares about my price. That's a problem. In your
business, you're selling wholesale retail. People are always about
your prices. You compete on a daily basis. That's why it's efficient.
No one's talking about well, I don't know who's talking about
nationalizing manufacturing. But they are about health care because
it's broken, because nobody cares about the price.' ['Rand Paul Speech
To Kentucky Manufacturers' (Video Unavailable Online) 2/1/10, 24:24]
Paul Proposed $2,000 Medicare Deductible. 'One of the things I've
talked about and this may be counterintuitive, and people may not
want to hear it, but a $2,000 Medicare deductible would solve a huge
amount of problems. (Inaudible) what would the poor people do?
Well, maybe we could keep the poor people at $100. That's where they
are now. But maybe most of the rest of the public should be at
$2,000. The tradeoff would be that our prices would free up. Now,
Mike charges a lot more probably. It takes him more to do a liver
transplant than do a cataract. I was done in 15 minutes today. So I
probably should make less than he does for a liver transplant. But
the thing is all my fees would be under $2,000. But then the price
would open up. If (people ?) were paying cash, we'd get rid of price
controls. The same way with my office exam. And now Mike's office
exam, and every doctor's office exam would open up. And they'd come
in and they'd pay cash. You wouldn't have to file their insurance.
But instead of maybe $140 for mine, it might be 90 (dollars) or
something, because there might be some price competition. So there
might be some benefit to the consumer. The other thing about having
higher deductibles is the higher your deductible, the lower your
premium. And so there are advantages. And I think that we, as
Republicans, need to, instead of just harping about how bad Obama plan
is which we should, we need to have a vision and present something
for: what can we say, what would we do for health care.' ['Rand Paul
Speaks in Louisville 9-22-09 Part 2', 9/22/09, 2:00]
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