Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) slams President Biden’s speech as "dishonest" amid 25-30% insurance premium hikes and shrinking ACA coverage, blaming Republicans for pushing repeal over fixes while Democrats failed to fully implement affordability reforms. She proposes Minnesota’s doctor/hospital payment model—used by 17 states—to cut costs but criticizes stagnant Medicaid/Medicare rates. McCollum also demands War Powers Act oversight of Caribbean military operations, questioning $X blockades and deadly boat strikes, urging Congress to reclaim its role in accountability over executive overreach. [Automatically generated summary]
It is not working the way it was intended, or at least the way they told us it was intended.
And so, from my vantage point, it's not about casting blame at this point.
It's about looking at the system and saying, How do we fix this?
Democrats are saying health care costs are an existential threat, yet they don't want to acknowledge that this is the system they created.
This is the program that they said would solve the problem, and clearly it has not.
So, how do we actually fix the system is the question.
How do we improve upon the existing law?
I'm not interested in repeal and replace and the drama of the tit-for-tat political game.
I want to fix the system so that we actually reduce health care costs.
That should be the focus.
And I don't care if the idea comes from the left or the right, if it's actually going to ensure that people have access and it's going to reduce overall costs, we should embrace it, we should figure out how to make it work, and we should work in a bipartisan way to get it done.
What was disheartening in the fact that the president took a posture of anger, being frustrated?
That's not what we want to hear from our president.
We want to hear solutions.
We want to know that he is paying attention to what is happening in our district.
So that was disappointing.
And, you know, the frustration that was in his voice the entire time, the anger that was in his voice, the misdirection blaming someone else for what's happening today in the present was just totally uncalled for.
My constituents know that the cost of their health care is going to go up.
Many of them can't afford to either sell their house because someone can't afford to buy it, move into a smaller house to create a housing opportunity for a new family, or afford basic rent after getting their first job.
And then the whole issue about prices going up, I'm in Minnesota.
We're a farm country, and we still are seeing grocery prices be higher than we would like them to be.
And then you had the holidays and trying to Christmas shop on top of it.
The president was tone-deaf about what's going on in the economy.
Four of your Republican colleagues signed a discharge petition yesterday forcing a vote on a three-year extension of Obamacare subsidies.
What's your message to those four and to the other Republicans that are not on board with that?
unidentified
Well, I try never to question anybody's motives, but I have to be honest here.
It was too little, too late.
We should have done this in November and moved a discussion forward with the Senate that was sincere and honest about addressing some of the things that should be fixed in the Affordable Care Act, but focusing on making sure that everyone could afford health insurance.
I talked to a small business person who was in my office just yesterday, and we were there to talk about his business.
I said, you know, this just happened on the floor.
Some Republicans joined in and signed this discharge petition, which allows for a vote in January.
And he said, that's too late.
He said, I had to pick out a plan.
And he and I talked about people we know who are going without insurance at all because they can't even afford the most basic plan.
Now, Republicans make the argument that the ACA is a broken system and it's not working for Americans.
And why should we continue good money after bad?
What's your response to that?
unidentified
Will you tell the people who have had cancer surgeries, the people who don't have medical debt anymore, the parent who doesn't worry about taking their child in for a strep test that it's broken?
What I'm hearing from people is, you know, if there's things that need to be fixed on it, talk to us about what's working and then work on what isn't.
You know, one of the things that they say is that the costs are just prohibited.
Well, explain to somebody how on average the Affordable Care Act had a 5% health care raise increase.
I'd like to see that go lower.
I'd love to work with people on that.
But what a lot of people are facing right now is 25-30% raise in their insurance, and it's not covering as much as it did the previous year.
That's what's broken, not having insurance available to families.
And lawmakers will point to health insurance companies who they say are gouging the consumer.
What's your reaction to that?
And is there something that, I mean, what's Congress going to do about that if that is the case?
unidentified
If there is waste fraud and abuse and Medicaid, Medicare, and our health insurance system, get to work and hold hearings on it.
Bring the insurance companies in here.
They have the gavel.
They could have been doing this the whole time since January, last January.
They could have been having hearings on how we can work together if insurance companies are gouging insumers and gouging the government.
Let's do some hearings.
Let's do our job.
Let's do the oversight.
None of that happened.
So it's frustrating to me that I hear about all these problems that they want to fix.
Well, then let's fix them.
But first you have to honestly address the problem, have hearings, have the experts in, and see what we can do.
Instead, I just hear about let's repeal the whole Affordable Care Act, let everybody's health care crash, and then maybe we'll do something about it.
I'm not going to do it that way.
I want to fix the system where it needs to be fixed, but I want to do it in a responsible way that doesn't put Americans in a bind without any health insurance for them or their families.
And speaking of working on something, this will be it for the House this week.
They are going to be ending their session.
What are your priorities for next year?
unidentified
Well, my priorities for next year is to work with my Republican colleagues, especially on the Defense Committee, to do some serious oversight about what's going on in the Caribbean.
I think what we are doing down there is unlawful.
We had two votes on the floor to pass a War Powers Act, which would have Congress be more involved in what the President is doing with our military and pre-positioning it.
These boat strikes that are happening where people are drowning at sea after our military does a hit before with no danger to our military at all.
We should have gone in and we should have attempted a rescue.
And this whole thing about putting up blockades, I'm on the Defense Appropriations Committee.
I'm the ranking member.
I've asked time and time and time again, how much is this costing?
What isn't happening because of the president doing this?