Fox host dismisses concerns about rising number of Americans without health insurance
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From the September 11 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom
BILL HEMMER (CO-ANCHOR): Data also showed the number of Americans without health insurance rose by nearly two million.
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CHARLES PAYNE (FOX BUSINESS HOST): The big one that the media obviously focused on, the one glaring issue or problem if you will, is people without medical insurance. You know, there are a few reasons for that, I don't think there's one reason to be quite frank with you. But I do find it interesting that Medicaid, two million people came off Medicaid because apparently they're making more money, they no longer qualify, which correlates with the 1.9 million more without health insurance. But there might've been some other reasons as well.
HEMMER: Huh, Wall Street Journal, I think, agrees with you. Here they are: "The only conversation left wants to have is with health care is how many Americans are insured, and that's so they don't have to answer to failures like Medicaid's narrow provider networks, high emergency room rates -- use rates, rather, and more." You agree with that?
PAYNE: I agree with that 1000% and I think that's going to be in a central battle tomorrow at the debates, right. You're going to have Joe Biden trying to say, hey, Obamacare just needs a little retooling, and the rest of these candidates, for the most part, are going to be saying, no, Medicare for all is the answer. You know, here's the thing though, Bill, if you look at the employer side of this, that's what's really phenomenal -- 178 million Americans with employer-based health care, another 35 million with direct purchase health care. You know, to want to tinker with that, to want to wreck the 200 million Americans who have great health insurance and don't want any more tinkering around with it, is a huge economic and political gamble.