‘I Look Forward To The Apologies’: Tim Wahlberg Accuses Dems Of ‘Fear-Mongering’ Over Medicaid Cuts

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During a House Education and Workforce Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) spoke about possible Medicaid cuts.

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00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to say thank you to you and Ranking Member

00:11Dissolnie for your flexibility in continuing this hearing today, starting a little earlier

00:16than we'd planned as the schedule's changed, but thank you. I think it's an important hearing.

00:21I would also say I look forward to the apologies that will come out from my Democrat colleagues

00:27when we find it all worked out that there were no Medicaid benefit cuts. The unfettered fear-mongering

00:37that's going on that people with cancer and everyone else are concerned with, unnecessarily,

00:43I look forward to that, and the conscious effort to try to declare before the American people that

00:50$880 billion of cuts, which will cut the entire Medicaid funding, is intended. So we'll see.

00:59I look forward to that when, in fact, the President and leadership in Congress have said no Medicaid

01:06cuts. I hope that gets out. Ms. Shields, thank you for being here. The Congressional Budget Office estimates

01:13that expanding association health plans will result in 400,000 uninsured individuals gaining coverage.

01:22What are additional advantages of allowing small businesses to band together to offer coverage

01:28through AHPs? Thank you. Again, there's many benefits to allowing these programs. One, you do pick up

01:37additional people who had not been insured. We've had, not to repeat myself, but 15% that were uninsured

01:45across the entire nation with NAR, so we're picking them up. Secondly, we have a comprehensive plan that is

01:54offering great benefits to our members that they were otherwise unable to get. The cost savings,

02:01the deductible that is lower, and we were able to lower the deductibles for our members, where they were

02:09paying for a family $11,000, we were able to bring that down significantly, anywhere from $4,000 to $6,000,

02:16depending on which plan they picked. And these are high-quality plans that were ACA compliant and had all

02:2310 essential pieces in it. They're able to keep their doctors. We were allowing them to choose, these plans

02:34allowed them to choose their doctors. We also had, where we were allowing pre-existing conditions. So it was

02:43everything that we were able to provide. It was as if you were going to work for a large employer, but it was a plan

02:51that they were able to do as self-employed, which for us, our job is to offer our members benefits, and this

02:59was one of the biggest benefits they were asking for. So the disruption of the Tennessee Realtors AHP

03:06ultimately put people on the Unaffordable Care Act again. Absolutely, or uninsured. Or uninsured,

03:13which was basically the same in many cases. You had an insurance policy on the Unaffordable Care Act,

03:19but you couldn't use it in so many cases. Right. We heard terrible stories from members,

03:26particularly when we had to tell them that we had to cancel the program. I had a member who

03:32unfortunately has passed since that time, who had everything from heart conditions to diabetes and

03:40ended up dying from Lou Gehrig's disease. So to have to tell somebody like that, that we finally got you on a

03:45plan and then have to tell him we're so sorry, but now we have to take it away. Yeah, the cruelty of

03:51the courts and the Biden administration and taking people off a plan that worked for them,

03:55which provides insurance coverage when you figure across the nation for 85% potentially of our workforce

04:02in small business. Thank you. Ms. Strauss, use of telehealth drastically increased during the pandemic,

04:09and as a result, we saw new and innovative ways of delivering care. What feedback did you receive

04:14from workers about increased access to telehealth benefits? Yeah, the telehealth benefit was actually

04:20pretty significant during that time. And then going forward, people got used to it and the access to

04:26care through telehealth. And so for us, what we saw in the state of Iowa was more access to behavioral health

04:32providers during that time because like Iowa, like many states have challenges with providers and access

04:39to providers, especially in rural communities like Iowa has. And so that telehealth piece actually helps

04:44to keep people from running into the doctor for things and incurring a cost, a claims cost to that.

04:51A lot of these things can be done at no cost to the employee, depending on plans and how these are set up.

04:57So what also happened was it actually encouraged people to actually seek that care because maybe

05:03that barrier of getting in to seeing a provider face-to-face is gone. So telehealth is very

05:09significant. We'd love to see that continue forward, especially on the health savings accounts,

05:13qualified plans, which saves costs as well and helps health care. Thank you. I yield back.

05:18I yield back.

05:20Mr. Chairman.

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