Fox News medical contributor attacks the Affordable Care Act and Kamala Harris' goal to extend health care coverage
In response to Harris discussing putting a cap on insulin costs, Fox medical contributor asks “Where are they gonna get the money to pay for all the research?”
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From the October 21, 2024, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends
AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): Dr. Marc Siegel is here with the different polices. Good morning to you Dr. Siegel.
MARC SIEGEL (FOX MEDICAL CONTRIBUTOR): Great to see you.
EARHARDT: Perfect person to tell us which one you think is perfect for the patients and for the voters. Tell us if you can about each of their plans.
SIEGEL: You know, they are not fully fleshed out yet. Either one. But there is a fundamental philosophical difference. We spend $4 trillion a year, this country, for healthcare costs. Most of it is disease-oriented, for people with chronic illness, people towards the end of life, people get really sick. Waiting lines are increasing. We're spending three times more on prescription drugs than any other country that's industrialized. We start life with a lot of expectations. But given how much we spend on healthcare, our lifespan is shorter than other wealthy countries.
EARHARDT: That's shocking, this is America.
SIEGEL: Our system is broken. Our system is broken. Medicaid and Medicare about $1.5 trillion a year. The philosophical approach is very, very different.
Kamala Harris basically wants to extend coverage. So more Americans are covered. There's about 26 million Americans that are still not covered. It hasn't really increased through the pandemic and after. It's about 26 million still not covered.
Trump's idea and Vance's idea is twofold. One, to increase private solutions. More competition, more innovation. Focus also on prevention, losing weight. Getting rid of ultra-processed foods. Make America healthy again. That's them. They want more transparency. More transparency in drug prices. And again, more competition.
The problem with extending coverage under Harris' plan is that you — potential plan — is that you may not get the doctor you seek. The Obamacare exchanges have narrow network of physicians, high deductible. So it may promise you care. But you may not actually get the care.
EARHARDT: You might have to wait in line for a long time, especially if she does Medicare for all or we've seen this in Canada. We've seen this in Europe. And what that means, you could you could have cancer, but you can't get in with the doctor for months and months.
SIEGEL: And that's actually starting to happen here already where waiting lines are increasing, where people — and you were looking at this just before the segment. People are delaying care because of the out-of-pocket costs. So we gotta get rid of the middle man, the pharmacy benefit managers. We definitely have to get drug prices down, but I'll tell you what I'm most disturbed about in terms of extending coverage. There's no recognition that we're happily heading towards a time of great innovation, artificial intelligence, personalized solutions, really expensive —
EARHARDT: How will that help with medicine?
SIEGEL: I talked to our top cancer expert at NYU the other day who said, you know, CAR-T, which is where you take the tumor out, reengineer it, put it back in, is $450,000 a treatment. How is Obamacare gonna cover that or even Medicare? They're not.
EARHARDT: Yeah. I mean, it's it's very scary when you think about so many people can't afford their drugs, can't afford medical care for their children. It's so expensive.
SIEGEL: Now Harris is putting a cap on insulin out-of-pocket cost to $35 a month, and they — and she says drug costs $2,000 a year. But, again, the drug companies are looking at innovation. Where are they gonna get the money to pay for all the research?