2:13:35 And Stephanie Cutter is relatively new in the administration. She is yet another one of these special advisors to our president, who was a chief of staff to Michelle Obama. and she served as a little Timmy Geithner's counselor. She was named in 2009 as GQ magazine one of the 50 most powerful people in Washington and she is the assistant to the president for special projects charged with managing the communications and outreach strategy for the patient protection and affordable care act known as Obamacare. And she took to the whiteboard John and she explained exactly how it's going to work.
2:14:15 and she explained exactly what's happening and I'm gonna turn this around and ask you a question are you ready for it? I guess. By the way this woman is a communications expert she after she left the previous administration. I bet she is. Well you listen to her she is the most horrible the most horrible communicator I have ever seen maybe it's because she's hot Maybe she's really communicating. She's milfy. She talks into someone's microphone, that's for sure. They even had to edit her video and put a voiceover in because she forgot to communicate something. But I will ask you a question about what she's communicating. This is the scribbling on the whiteboard.
2:15:12 but carefully to implement the law. There's been lots of talk recently about rolling back the Affordable Care Act, repealing it, and going back to the days of skyrocketing premiums and out of control costs for businesses. So you're with me? So far she's trying to answer your question. I'm not hearing an answer, but she's going to. No, no, well she's going to answer. Today I want to talk about the role of the Affordable Care Act in reducing premiums for families and strengthening our economy and creating jobs. Today we're going to focus on two charts. The first is a chart that shows the premium cost for a family of four with the law and without it. By the way, all the good
2:15:49 parts the chart are blue all the bad parts are read of course in two thousand fourteen when the law is fully implemented families a family of four making thirty three thousand dollars a year will be paying roughly fifteen hundred dollars per year in premium okay so that's why it's the so that's the family app none of the listen this is going to get great as you understand it uh... a family of four making thirty three thousand dollars a year uh... will be paying roughly as just a look off camera fifteen hundred dollars a year in premiums that's five percent of gross income right what do you think now john what i'm i'm paying like three hundred bucks a month for three people why had a bigger family is probably uh... spying more like uh... nine hundred a month so you're interesting okay uh...
2:16:43 I must be paying more than I'm making a mistake. I'm paying 600. There you go. I'm paying like 600. Yeah, that makes sense. I'm paying 600 and you're paying 900 a month. Okay. Yeah, neither of us are we are luckily making more than $33,000 but we're making less than $100,000 on this show for sure and this is all I got right now. Pause. A family of four making $55,000 a year will pay roughly $5,000 a year in premiums. Whoa. So, okay, so you're going to be, if you make $55,000 a year, you're going to be paying 10% of your gross income in premiums. 10%. A family for making $77,000 per year will pay roughly $8,000. Wait a minute, that sounds like if you make, you're going to be paying 11.5%.
2:17:30 So, okay, well hold on, it's four, still four people, but you make more money, you're paying more. Hold on, let's see the last bit here. And premiums. And finally, a family making about $99,000 per year will pay roughly $9,000 in premiums. So, isn't that just a tax? If, I mean, how, am I gonna get, am I getting better care? It's like a progressive tax. Wait a minute, so someone who's making $33,000 pays $1,500 and do they get less care, better care, do we not get the same care? I'm paying, I'll be paying eight times as much, seven times as much.
2:18:08 Do I get the same care as someone... I don't understand. Well, the logic here is interesting because it seems to me that one of the complaints was, well, you know, the problem the way it is now is that people that don't have coverage, they go in... Ah! ...and get free work and then we have to pay for it. I'm glad you bring that up. I'm glad you bring that up. Now, if the law were repealed... These same families wouldn't have these savings because at any income level a family of four in 2014 would be paying more than $11,000 per year in premium costs. We're going to be paying less to care for those without insurance. And why is that? Today, for a family of four, over $1,000 per year is added to premiums to pay for the health care for people without insurance. People showing up in emergency rooms, getting the care that they need but not being able to pay for it.
2:18:56 those costs will be significantly reduced because we're bringing all of those people back. Wait, now it can't be significant, it's only going to be reduced by a thousand dollars. Exactly. That's not significant. That's not significant, not based on this scale. Nope. So how does that, what is this, she makes no sense, this woman. Well, hold on, because here comes the edit where she completely messed it up. Getting them the care they need and not putting the burden on those with insurance. Another factor will be new exchanges established in 2014 that will allow millions of Americans to pull together, compare prices and get the best bargain. The second reason... I thought that was the funniest thing. She forgot to communicate a whole piece of the strategy and so they did a voiceover later with a shot of the blackboard. That's funny. It's unbelievable. This is the communications expert.
2:19:44 So it's a tax. It's just a tax. I get it. Okay, I understand. So you're going to be paying, you're not getting a thousand dollar break, you're going to be paying more. You're going to be paying more than $11,000. It's a tax, you're right. It's a bull crap tax. It's a tax slash fee. And you're paying, you're going to be paying more. I guess. Yeah, no, everyone's going to be paying more. I think everybody who's actually looked into this knows that. I've already you know set it up to pay more because they've jacked up the prices of prescriptions. Yeah, you get a prescription $10 deal co-pay, but if you look at the base price people should go do this go look at what you paid for whatever drug you happen to have a prescription for a year ago and Look at because they show the base price on your little thing you pay the 10 bucks But it shows the base price would be like 35 45 bucks. Let's say you look at the same drug today and
2:20:37 It's an older drug now, it's been in production longer, they're cranking it out like there's no tomorrow. Look at the base price, it's like 70. So they're gouging, it's the drug companies and the suppliers. They're gouging the insurance companies who are just jacking up their prices because they have to. And the insurance companies go, oh well, there's nothing we can do, we're just going along because these guys have jacked up the prices. Of course they maintain the same margin because they have to have a profit margin of some sort and if you have a profit margin of say 10% on $100,000 would be $10,000 but if you have the exact same profit margin on a million dollars it would be like 10 times as much but you can say our profit margin hasn't changed. In fact it went down a point. It's a scam. Then I'd like to end on a lighter note.