00:00Senator Husted.
00:02Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:05Thank all of our witnesses for being here today.
00:08I'm hopeful that this is one of those issues that we can have some great bipartisan progress on,
00:13because I think we all care about making sure that everyone in America has access to health care,
00:20but part of having access is being able to afford it.
00:22And we have a situation in this country where we spend far more.
00:30I mean, it's not for lack of effort in terms of how much it costs to provide health care that we're in this challenge.
00:3618% of our economy is committed to health care.
00:38That's $5.26 trillion a year, far outpacing per capita what any other country spends on health care.
00:47But it reminds me, I grew up very rural.
00:49It reminds me, when I was a little kid, I went with my dad to buy a used car.
00:55And when we walked up to the guy who had the car to sell, he said, my dad said, well, what do you want for the car?
01:03And he looked back at him and said, well, how much do you have?
01:06Right?
01:07If you don't know the price of something, pretty hard, know whether you're getting a good deal, have a negotiation.
01:13In this country right now, we have no idea what we're paying for health care as consumers, whether you're an employer, an individual, somebody buying a health care program.
01:23None of us know.
01:25In most markets, we know.
01:27We know what the price is.
01:28We walk up.
01:29We know what the price is.
01:30Not in health care.
01:31It's a mystery.
01:32None of us really know how much it is.
01:34And so that's, it seems to me, that's a fundamental component of trying to figure this out.
01:42Mr. Coleman, you have thoughts on that?
01:47Thank you so much for the question, Senator.
01:49I do have a lot of thoughts on that.
01:50I would say about 95% of my time now as a researcher is actually spent on the issue of the application of artificial intelligence within health care because it's one of the most promising mechanisms we might have to be able to curb health care costs.
02:06People tend to forget that our insurance costs are largely reflect.
02:10I'm sorry.
02:11Thank you, Senator.
02:12People tend to forget that our health insurance premiums are largely reflective of the costs of medical claims.
02:18And we need to find ways to be able to reduce the costs.
02:22You know, right now, the, you know, costs of our hospitals, our physicians are way out of line with comparable nations in Europe.
02:29As you mentioned, 17.4% of our GDP is spent on health care.
02:33We need to look at that health care delivery issue because that would really further enable the savings potential of the work we're discussing today on things like association health plans.
02:44So, uh, additionally, when you, you think about labor unions, they come together, they represent their members and negotiate, uh, for better wages, working conditions, health care, all benefits.
02:58But as an individual independent contractor, if I'm, I want to drive a, drive a car or have a small business, um, and, and Ms. Cavan, maybe you can answer this.
03:12I don't, do I have the same ability to come together and, and negotiate, uh, under the law as you would as an individual, as an employee in a business or a union?
03:22Are, you're talking about the health plans?
03:24Yeah, with health plans.
03:25We need better access to the group rates.
03:28This is not my personal area of expertise, but just asking everybody, knowing, you know, I've been an independent contractor for more than two decades now.
03:36We're getting killed on these individual rates and we need equal access to the group rate plans.
03:41Yeah.
03:42Ms. Angwuka, do you have thought on that?
03:45Oh, nothing particular.
03:46They've said everything.
03:47Yeah.
03:48Mr. Coleman.
03:49Mr. Coleman.
03:52I have much, uh, you know, the, the same opinions that we need to find ways to be able to aggregate independent contractors so they have more leverage in negotiations on things like health insurance.
04:01Yeah, because if you, if you want to get a better price, you have to have the ability to know what the price is and improve your negotiating power so that you can figure out how to, how to get the best deal for yourself.
04:14Absolutely.
04:14It's literally the basis of the group health insurance market.
04:17And we just, we need to do better, uh, on that front.
04:22I will, uh, um, I just want to just say that this is an issue of healthcare when I think of small businesses.
04:31And we, we just passed, by the way, in, in the big, beautiful bill, we help social security.
04:38We help small businesses.
04:39We help people have more money in their pockets to be able to pay for out of it.
04:42But healthcare is going up.
04:43The cost is going up so fast.
04:45And if you don't have the ability, I mean, you make so many decisions in your life as a family member based on whether or not you can have healthcare, where you're going, where you are, where you change.
04:57Uh, and I hope that, Mr. Chairman, we'll work very closely together to improve the way that we're serving all of our customers, people of the country.
05:06Um, and I just want to note, um, Ms. Friedman has been saying that only 50% of workers have access to defined benefit or defined contribution plans.
05:17But I'll submit for the record a CRS report based on IRS data showing that almost 80% do.
05:23Um, so just to point that out.
05:26Um, thank you very much, Senator Cassidy.
05:29Um, I'd like to suggest that, um, I'm talking about 50% who participate in a plan.
05:35If you're talking about access, it's a, it's a slightly different issue.
05:39So, yeah, I'd be happy to share that with you.
05:41But thank you very much.
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