Rumors, Myths and Truths Behind Obama's Health Care Plan

Stuff podcast dot com. You shouldn't an email, Molly. Thank you. I'm here to keep you on track on all things grammatical and healthcare format anything else. Yeah, that's good. That's

that's enough, right, perfect. So for those of you just joining us, you should probably go back and listen to the first two podcasts that we released in this special Stuff you Should Know Healthcare Reform Sweet and this is number three of four or Yes, we talked about what's wrong with healthcare in the US, and the first one, right, we talked about Obama's proposal just straight up facts, and then this this one we're gonna talk about myths yes,

both from the left and the right. So you know, those of you who are Bill O'Reilly fans, you can sit down and have a mug of beer with people who are fans of MPR. Say right, if you're libertarian, you're just sorry you're out. Just go go do whatever it is you guys do a nice chuck um, So let's get started, kids, you wanna. I think one of the things that that people keep maybe weekly throwing out is that the US can't really afford to tackle healthcare form right now? Is that that's a myth? Are we

doing that? Should we have some sort of ding said it's a myth? And I agree with her. Well, you know, the thing about it is is would you you may not be able to afford like a new TV, right, but if you had an old TV and it was a tremendously bad value you I mean, if you're just paying way more for that TV than what it's worth to get it repaired a lot and not gonna yeah, I mean, then you've got to do something about it because you're just you're not getting a good deal on

your TV. Sometimes it's smarter to buy the new TV. Yeah, And that is the position we are in right now with health care form, is we pay way too much money and get way too little care for for what we have. So just if you like a good deal, I think you should be behind health care form. So let's let's recap real quick. Um, the US is spending about two point four trillion dollars a year on healthcare. That makes up a sixth of the gross domestic product,

and that's more than we spend on defense. Right. Um. At the same time, we're not getting as much value out of it. So they say, right, but we are entrenched in two wars and the economies in the toilet. You're saying, still, we should do something about it. Now, how are we going to pay for it? That's another that's another common criticism we keep hearing is how how

are we going to pay for this? Well, I think the specifics stilling to be worked out, but I think that it's important to remember that the president it has pledged that will be deficit neutral. It's not going to add appending to the deficit in the ten years, the first ten years that it is in action, nor after that. So, um, you know, it's it's something that we could possibly say as a myth just because we don't know exactly how I'll pay for it. But one thing I take them

with a grain of salt. Yeah, I liked your point you made in here that the people are afraid that the uninsured are going I'm sorry, the insured are going to be paying for the uninsured. That already happens. Oh yeah, I mean, there's an estimate that families are paying about a thousand more in their premiums just because people who are uninsured still show up and go to the hospital and they get treated, and an individual pays about four more.

And so doctors and hospitals likely ship those costs to us because I mean, they got to get paid for it somehow, and they know insurance companies will pay. So let's let's let's flesh that out a little more. Say an uninsured worker day labor gets hurt on the job, the boss comes and drops them off at the er. The r BI federal mandate has to treat that man, stabilize them, fix his wound whatever. Right, Um, he walks away, he doesn't pay, he doesn't have any insurance and possibilities

here illegally say. Um, so what you're saying is the hospitals will end up charging more for patients that have insurance. They'll charge the insurance companies more, and then the insurance companies turn around and charge more for people who have insurance. They they charge more in premiums. Right, And then that's the way that there's a tax, UH, an invisible tax for the uninsured that covers the uninsured that's in place

right now. Right. That's that's the thinking by UM, the think tank that came up with these numbers, that we are already paying for people who show up without insurance. And so if these people then had insurance, if this plan works and we can get everyone insured, then that would kind of cease that we're hoping that it would control the costs a little bit. Yeah, that would be great.

So this is a one trillion dollar proposal over ten years, right, So clearly just UM making sure everyone has insurance in and of itself is going to be very expensive, right. UM. Is it a myth then that there won't be higher taxes for people who who, say, make a quarter of a million dollars or more a year. I think that it's impossible to say what we'll actually have in place, but that is the president's current preferences that we tax

people who make more than two dollars a year. Okay, and then I noticed the point that, um, that the President and people like Nancy Pelosi have made is that those people had been getting a lot of breaks over the previous eight years, and so they think that this is going to sort of balance that outout without getting too political about it. But that's what's being said. True, Chuck can't help himself. That's gonna started about libertarians. Nancy Pelosi said, not me. So, Um, guys, this light in

the mood a little bit. Let's talk about death panels. Let's bring a little comedy into this one. This is probably the most pervasive myth I would say about healthcare form, and arguably the most ass And I wouldn't you say, I don't know. I think if you are told that you might be put to death, you're gonna take it pretty seriously. Yeah, you will take it seriously. But I'm saying the I guess the the thought process behind that

interpretation of UM. The House Bill about end of life counseling, that's what it's about, right, So basically in the House Bill, it says UM medicaid or medicare can be reimbursed for voluntary end of life counseling. Right. It doesn't say anything about the patient signing signing a resuscitation order or do not resuscitate order um or any any anything like that has nothing to do with actually terminating a patient's life. Right.

It's like they would stick the pin in Grandma's hand and like put it on the line, and if she just falls asleep and it scratches across, then all of a sudden there's a do not resuscitate order in the one less old person we have to worry about getting an organ transplant for because she voluntarily said I don't want it. It It is a myth. And not only is it a myth, uh, it is a career ruiner too if you speak out too much. You guys heard about Betsy McCoy, John Stewart, Is that the lady? He? Yeah?

Have you seen that, Molly? Yes, it's pretty someone that came up with the term death panel? Right? Yeah? Am I wrong there? I believe she's just the one. She didn't coin it. She gets credit for coining if she was so vociferous about it. Right, So you know what, here's the thing without pointing fingers at who came up

with it. No one wants to die, right, I would say most people people don't want to die, and they also probably don't want to spend a lot of time thinking about how they're going to die, right, And so the fact that we're even bringing this conversation up just makes it uncomfortable for some people. The fact of the matter is is that we probably all have in our head that we'd like to die, maybe peacefully, at home. And the fact of the matter is now most people

die in a hospital or a nursing facility. Whereas would prefer not to die, there are dying there. So what we're trying to do is to respect well, not I shouldn't say we like it's not me trying to do this, but what these bills are trying to do is to make sure that if you do have a wish about how you die or who makes the decisions at that time when you maybe can't speak for yourself, that those

wishes are respected. The a ARP has come out and support of this because the fact of the matter is is that even if we don't like to talk about it, it's going to happen. Let's have the conversation and if you have the conversation, have it paid for by Medicaid and medicare, right, But you don't have to have the conversation if you don't want to. It's completely voluntary. And even if you have it, you're not going to leave that meeting with a living will necessarily or um you know,

a d n R order. You're gonna leave just knowing what your options are. But I wasn't gonna put my opinion in, but that sounds like a really good idea to me. Sure it is. And also um Stewart pointed out on in the interview that you can just as easily come out of it with a resuscitate at any cost order. So it's it's not just specifically about DNA. Why they call it death panel. They should have called

it life no matter what. Because the death panel scares the tara elder, right, That's I think that was the most one of the most odious things that come out of this healthcare form debate was the panel. I mean, it was just it was specifically geared to scare the elderly, but you know, they already have enough things to worry about. I mean, I think that some of the elderly spears about this bill are founded when you hear there's going to be cuts to Medicare and that there might be

incidences of euthanasia, which this is not true. The death panel thing not true. But there will be cuts to Medicare. You can't get around that. Sure, let's talk about that, because that's a that's that's something that you raised in this m article. That it won't affect Medicare is a is a is a myth, right, it's a promise that the President has made in terms of benefits that if you are a Medicare recipient, that you will still have

the same benefits that you've always had. The fact of the matter is a large part of the funding for these proposals will likely come from Medicare because the way

that Medicare operates now is probably unsustainable. So by making these cuts and incentivizing doctors to be more efficient in the way they treat patients, when we're talking about bundling services, bundling service, so actually we chuck and I spoke to Dr Michael Roisen, who's the chief wellness officer at the Cleveland Clinic in appropriately enough Cleveland, Ohio, uh and he's also co author of the You the Owner's Manual book series. And uh, he talked about bundling services. Uh. And it's

based around what's called accountable organizations. It's like a group that's in charge of the health of an individual patient. Right. Here's here's what he had to say about that. So I like accountable organizations, meaning that I that someone pays if you will, I, whether it's myself or um, the Cleveland clinic where I work, pays for my healthcare and

I don't have to worry about it. And they get a set amount of money whether I need um, sixteen tooth extractions and four um if you will, revisions or four total hips to total hips, two total knees, or whether I need none. And the goal of them, of those organizations would be then to keep me healthy so that I don't need any major technology procedures. Teach me how to brush my teeth in flash so I need no teeth extractions. Right. So that's what that's what I

mean by pay for accountable outcomes. So if you couldn't tell, Dr Royson's very hip on prevention rather than preventative care, right. Um. And and he's he's also on board with accountable organizations. And he's also evidently on board with tooth extraction. He is, it's a good example. It's well, I mean, anybody can approach a tooth extraction, right, But the point is is there there has to be a group that is in charge of the health care of the individual, right, and

then that way you can hold that group accountable. You're paying that group and you say, keep this person well, and if they do need treatment, this is your pool of money that you have to extract from it, right, like so many teeth. Now, here's the problem. And this is where I think a lot of the fear comes about. Is what happens when that money runs out? Can doctors be trusted to say we're going to still keep treating you or are they going to try to skinch on that?

And I mean, is that a real fear? I think it's valid. You know, we would like to think that doctors become much more efficient. There's evidence that there is a lot of waste in the medicare system. And ideally how this will work as doctors will say, yes, we will become more efficient with this pool of money we have. But you know, you just never know what case is going to come up. That you can't treat a person with that pool of money with So Molly, you just

brought up Another point is um rationing healthcare? Right? Um, that's another huge fear among you know, not just the elderly, but anybody like if if this bundling of payments goes beyond just Medicare and it becomes a standard. UM, I guess one of the ways it would become a standard would be to have some sort of panel that approves medical procedures, right right, and UM, there are some panels in these bills, but they do not approve medical procedures.

Let's talk about those. These UM cost effectiveness panels UM are just meant to come in and decide which treatments are effective. There's no evidence that they would come in and say you can only do this because it's cheap. UM, it might be helpful to compare really quickly how Britain rations healthcare. Let's do it. Okay, So they've got this committee called UM ironically enough nice that stands for National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence. And then they're under

the NHS, which is their big public system. So let's say that, UM, there's a drug that costs fifteen thousand dollars, and it's going to improve your standard of life from a point five to a point seven. They look at everyone's standards of life from a zero to a one um, and it's worth saying that everyone's uh quality of life is considered important, whether you're seventy seven year old woman or a twelve year old boy. So it's gonna improve your standard of life from point five to point seven

point two, and it's gonna help you live fifteen years longer. Okay, that's been proven in a study. So point two times fifteen is three. So they get a multiplayer and then so that's three. That's what they call three qualities quality adjusted life here, so they're saying you're quality of life has been adjusted for these three years. It's like a multiplayer. So then they're gonna divide the total cost of the drug, buy the multiplier and get a cost per year amount.

In this case, if the drug is fifteen thousand dollars and your quality is three, the drug costs five thousand dollars a year, and that's the number on which the NICE would approve or not approve the drug. And NICE basically approves anything, basically anything that's about forty five thousand a year or below. So it's going to our system on that. No, that that's not in the bill. You know, when people talk about rational healthcare, Britain says, yes, we

have rational healthcare and that's how they do it. And there's nothing like that in any of these proposals. Let's talk some more about um. Actually, before we do that, I want to bring up another point that that worries me, and that is um that these these panels that approve medical procedures could lead to a stifling of innovation. Right,

is that a possibility? Well? I don't think so because if you look, I mean, even if you talk about Britain, it's not like Britain's way behind us on medical innovation. It's in some countries they've been able to do a lot more with a lot less. So isn't that sort of the true definition of innovation? So I think you basically have to prove that it works. I mean, we may not allow people to say this pill will take you to Mars if it won't. But um, what if

they said this pill is dynamite? Do they mean dynamite like explosive or just dynamite like awesome, awesome, Okay, I mean they definitely would to prove something that was explosive in my opinion, Um, but I'm no doctor than the Yeah. Um so I think it's just um, you know, making people prove the quality. One of the problems uh so far is that we have a lot of care that we don't necessarily know if it works, but it's really expensive. And this is just ensuring that people have to prove

that it works. And instead of spending all this money on marketing their drugs, drug companies might have to spend more money on research and development, which I think we can argue would benefit a patient more than marketing. Sure. Boy, last time I was in the doctor, the pharmaceutical people came came through there. Have you ever been to the doctor on the They walk in and go, we got some dynamite pills. No, well, who knows what happened behind

the doors. But they were literally like seven of them. They were spaced out like every five or ten minutes. And they came walking in with their their suitcase that you know, it's just full of drugs, and they went in the back and then they came out, and then the next dude would go in sure, and then the doctor finally comes out after the last one leaves and his little uh, a little reflector was all skewed. He's like, next, Doctor feel Good. Yeah, So is that how it goes down?

All these at a myth or truth? You know, I'm not I don't want to comment on doctor feel Good's personal life. Yeah, And we can't get into farming too much as a whole different but I think almost entirely, isn't it Big Farmer hasn't been um made a part of this almost at all, that it's not a part of healthcare form. Well, this might be a way to make them more accountable. Um is these panels that will

evaluate cost effectiveness of treatments. But let's re emphasize again that these panels are not designed to say to you you can't have the drug. It's just saying, we think this drug is the most cost effective, why don't you try that before trying one that is more experimental may not work as well, so on and so forth. It's not designed to get between a doctor and a patient. Okay, good, And I guess the last point um that I keep

hearing about ration in healthcare. It's very delicate, but there's a lot of people who say, you know, we kind of need to ration healthcare. You pointed out that health care is already ration by the health insurance companies, right, you know, by um annual limits or lifetime maximums for care UM and by denying coverage to people with pre existing conditions. But um, I think this, this whole idea that we may need ration care UM is kind of based on an idea that the average patient abuses this

health care infrastructure. Right, that there's so much available and we have so little conception of value to actually what we're taking advantage of that will say no, no, I want the m R I and that Cathy. I think we touched on that in the first one didn't, And I think that's that's fair for both sides to say the patient probably wants more care and more care because we have a lot of people who know what's out

there for them to take advantage of. And then I'm sure you also talked touched on that doctors are paid for every service they provide to a patient, and so there's incentives on both sides for doctors patient for the same thing. Even if it's not working, you feel better, and so Medicare with this bundling is going to be sort of the testing ground for trying to do this

within our system as a whole. That's the ideal. I don't know if how it will shake out in the end, but so can you say definitively whether rational ng healthcare is number one a myth or truth that it's going to happen. Well, if we take Britain's definition of what rational health care is in terms of a UH panel making a choice whether you can or cannot have the drug,

then no, there's nothing in these bills that would do that. Um, whether eventually there would be you know, fewer services and fewer of these people going in and getting every single service they asked for, it's possible that might that might decrease, but that could be a good thing. It could it could be Ultimately. You can make the point that this is very similar to UM, government prohibitions on drug use or something or um, you know, you have to be

a certain age to buy tobacco or to buy alcohol. Um, that's pretty much arbitrary. And this is actually a little more focused saying no, we have this huge infrastructure, you guys are costing us two point four trillion dollars a year, a lot of it unnecessary. So I don't you could argue the point that maybe somebody does need to step in and say you can't do this because that's stupid. That's true. But then on the other hand, you've got someone who takes, you know, nine tests and the tenth

one would have been the one that worked. And if they feel in any way that they didn't get that tenth test because of you know, they already got nine, then that's where people start to get worried. Is there any mechanism to um sue the pants off of the person who denied you that tenth test? Well that would currently we've got the whole medical malpractice thing, right, But if it wasn't a physician, if it was a government panel or something like that, could you sue the government? Yeah,

it could get very hinky. You know, some of the decisions that the Nice Panel makes are controversial. I mean, they deny a lot of really expensive cancer treatments and as a result, Britain has um you know, worst cancer survival rates in the US. Does whether someone has tried to sue, I don't think so, but um, because you can pay in England right. Our colleague Lee Dempsey pointed

out yesterday that you can actually pay better care. That was awful that everyone I just wanted to apologize to leave for Chucks terrible, terrible impression of his British act. He's actually not from England. He's from a small island that's not been yet named Manoa, and they have a very odd accent there. So, guys, um, I don't know a good way to put this. Let's talk about abortion. Is it a myth? That's a great icebreaker, by the way, for your next dinner party, Josh, you should keep that

in your cral. You know. That's how a lot of episodes of stuff Mom never told you start out. If anyone's interested, Christa and I just go, let's talk about abortion really, So we highly recommend you go listen to that podcast. But women's issues it's a big thing, you know. Obviously, people who want women to have the right to an abortion would like to see abortion be a necessary benefit

included by the government. What the what these bills provides the government to come in and say these are things that insurance plans have to cover to be considered valid insurance plans. Right, the minimum coverage right. So there's a big debate about a lot of things that be covered, like mental health, how much will that be covered? Abortion is the big one that is dicey because no, you know, no um anti abortion person wants to pay for someone

else's abortion, right. So how the House is compromised on this is that help promers can choose whether to provide it. It doesn't necessarily have to be one of these essential benefits, but it can be. And if you do get an abortion, the thinking is that you would pay not with these public subsidies that are available to people, but you'd have to pay out of pocket for that unless it was one of the abortions that's defined as um you know,

in the gray zone. The rape sort of abortion Senate Senate Finance Committee bill as it stands now prohibits funding accepting cases of rape, incest, or endangerment to the woman's life right. And that's I mean, that's the bill. I mean, that's the plan that a lot of like Congress people for example, have The government alright currently pays for abortions under those qualifications. And also the Finance Committee bill, which is just released yesterday, And but you said it's not

the final version. Right, it's his mark, so it'll still go through the Senate Finance Committee. It's the chairman's mark. On abortion, they continue to say that the bill would prevent abortion coverage from being included in a minimum benefits package and uh in the health insurance exchanges where you shot for the coverage, but the plans in exchange could include uh, they could offer abortion coverage as long as

no government subsidies pay for it. And still the coverage would be funded through member payments, which are segregated from the federal money. So that's what the Finance committees. Yeah, so that's consistent with how the House had it as well. Is it um? And basically the thinking is that any given area, you should be able to choose one plan that has abortion covered in one plan that doesn't. But they would be I saw this in your article too.

They would be um, the same plan except one covers abortion and one doesn't, okay, But everything else is the same, okay, and they'd be the same price, I imagine, right, I would think, So, yeah, what for the total plan, the

total bill. If you're in the marketplace, those insurance marketplaces we were talking about, you should have a choice of a plan that has abortion and a choice of planet that you would have, like a premium abortion pro plus and then premium no abortion plus plan right next to each other, and they should be the same the same cost, just to give people a choice. I thought you talking about the total bill, because to Senate finance bills about

a hundred and fifty billion dollars cheaper. Do you remember how when we went into the market place and we're looking at all those insurances there, I get it. So you can be pro choice, choice, You can have the choice to have the plan that has the choice. My mind is melting all over the table. All right, um, guys, can we talk about something that President Obama loves to say. It's usually the first thing he kicks off with, if you like your insurance plan, you can keep that plan.

Molly Edmond says that that is not necessarily true if you start looking down the road and read between the lines, right, you know. The thing is is, when um Obama went out the summer did his town halls. I think that if he had a nickel for every time he told people that if you like your plan, you can keep it,

he would have enough to find healthcare reform. Right. But I think if you were paying attention to the speech he made, the famous speech to Congress, you will notice that that phrase did not appear in the speech because I think he's realized that he can't promise people that their plan will stay exactly the same under these reforms. We're saying you can keep it, though not necessarily that

would be the exact same plan that you're keeping. Well, but that was how he was sort of pitching it is, if you like your doctor, you can have your doctor. And the fact of the matter is is that your plan is going to change, all right, to build in these consumer protections. So that's a great change. You know, you won't be able to be dropped by insurance company. They can't just discriminate for pre existing conditions UM. And then your plan will have about five years probably to

come up to speed with all these other plans. It'll be grandfathered into that minimum set of benefits we were talking about UM. But you know, in that marketplace when they start UM competing for all these uninsured customers, we don't know what current plans will have to do to stay financially viable. Right, They may have to slash services,

they have to slash services. That kind of stuff happens anyway, though your insurance plan probably isn't the same today as it was five years ago without all this government competition, that's true. And the thing is, if you don't know how your plans change over the five years, you may not notice how your plan changes when this happens to right. Yeah, I don't know. Well, first of all, it didn't have insurance five years ago, But I couldn't tell you what

it looked like last year. You know, you're living in the mountains. That is the in my car, Okay. I mean the only way you're gonna know is if you go to the doctor and all of a sudden they don't accept your insurance, or if something that used to be covered um isn't covered anymore. But that's just so speculative right now that it's impossible to say one way or the other whether you know things will be the

same or not. I think a lot of this, from what I'm reading, is like the outlines in place, But who knows how all this is going to shake out. Sometimes you have to wonder if we have to believe the best about people are the worst about people. Well that I think what it comes down to, I keep running across you mentioned, um that this whole thing is a ror check test or the public option is a

Rorschach test. And really what it comes down to is can you trust doctors to not skinch on healthcare when they're being paid and bundles skinch skinch you okay if it's not it is said, I love it? Yeah. Um. Can you can you trust that the government panels won't um, you know, stifle innovation like it does, undercut the insurance company so much or they can't stay in sure? Can you trust Obama that this isn't really a planned to

ultimately create a single payer system? Right? And can you trust individuals to take it upon themselves to like doctor Royson is a big advocate of to to take on preventative care, the burden for health is on the patient as much as is the doctor or not. I don't think that mindset is clear to a bunch of Americans. Well, but I think that that's what they're using as an excuse.

I mean, someone who would be against a big public option or really subsidized health care would say, this person got themselves into this mess because they smoked or their overweight or so on, and so looking at just what the mistakes of one person made is like not seeing the forest for the trees. So all these pieces are working together in a way that we can't isolate blame at anyone. But that's what this discussion has turned into. Saying that you know, the worst is going to happen

about these people, agreed. And actually, when we spoke to Royson, if I can bring them back again, um, he said that apparently basically us not caring at all about our health is costing this country me more than any other sector of the health care of health care spending. Um. He put it like this, of all healthcare costs are caused by chronic disease that is caused by four factors tobacco,

food choices, and portion size, physical inactivity, and stress. So we can reinvigorate primary care by paying physicians to teach these things because what gets paid for gets done, and what gets done gets taught well. So in fact, we have a tremendous opportunity of paying physicians to do this and saving a huge amount of money. In fact, if all we do is a program, um, and I'll go to the exact bill, it's called take back your health.

That does this for five diseases coronary disease, type two diabetes, metabolic syndrome, breast cancer, and prostate cancer. We save after paying for it. We save one point nine trillion over ten years. So clearly, as Royson pointed out, Molly, you are right. I mean, it comes in very large part comes down to us changing our perception about our own health and taking responsibility for him. Right, let's do one

last one, you guys mind, since we're not doing listener mail. Okay, let's do it, Josh, are we moving towards socialized country this one? Well, do you know the definition of socialized country, CHUCKA. I do not, Josh, go state owned and operated industry. So not only is the government paying your bills, they're hiring your doctors and running your hospitals. So that's what

Britain does. And then there's also a fear of a single payer system, which, um, you know, Obama has a few choice quotes that people like to pull up saying that he would like a single payer system. Right, that's what Canada has, where all the bills just go straight to the government, no questions asked, hi Wan, Right, doesn't one actually let's say that, because we're gonna talk about healthcare systems from around the world in the next one.

So most countries have some form of single pair, but whether um, we've been promised a uniquely American system because we are a uniquely American country too late at this point, don't you think. I mean, even if we wanted to switch to socialized medicine, we couldn't do it now. I think you could over the course of May. But you know, we're certainly not there with these proposals. There's no need to fear these specific bills as any sort of move

towards um single pair or socialized medicine. Well, I think one of the concerns though, is that this uh this public option uh is will eventually run the other insurance companies out of business and then we'll have a de facto single payer system because the only man left standing will be the public option, right is that is that one of the fears the concerns that that is a concern. Um, the public option is so in the air right now, that would be hard for us to making a sort

of conclusion my whether that's a myth or not. You know, the thing that just came out this week. Um, the Senate Finance Committee one that's can get all marked up. That went for co ops, so we know how will a co op work in this system versus what would a public plan be? So that right now is is such a shadowy thing that I think we should have

avoid speculating on it. Okay, agreed, agreed. No, we don't want to stir up any more fierce as the whole point of this podcast was to allay them pretty much, right, or at least say no, you're running. You should be scared out of your mind. Here's my guess. I don't think they could do anything to put every insurance company out of business. No, that's what I think. I think the one of these call me in ten years, if there are no more private insurance companies in America, They'll

buy you a beer. Really, yeah, anyone out there? Yeah, of course I'll be dead, and ten years you will be because they've rash in your healthcare. Exactly. You faced the death panel. No, I want to live. You signed. Sorry, guys, that's about it, right, you got any more myths you want to cover? I know him? Illegal immigrants? Yeah? Oh, you thought you were getting away without talking about this. No, this is a big one. As I saw actually in

the House bill. It's it's basically says, actually, it does say, if you're born in the United States and you're not covered, you're automatically covered. Does that amount to covering illegal immigrants? Now, not necessarily the people who are you know, um, that same day labor who went into the e er Right, Um,

we're not talking about him necessarily. But the children of illegal immigrants would be covered under that language, right, So, I mean that is technically correct that illegal immigrants would be covered. Well, no, their children will be covered, right, but they themselves, the children would be considered illegal. No, they know, if you're born on American soil, you're an American. Excellent point. There's no legist there. I mean, it's not, Um,

there's no no law that says that. But it's generally thought that if you're born on American soil, you're American citizens. Okay, So technically they wouldn't. It wouldn't cover legal immigrants, does it in any other way? Well, the way it was explained to me is that illegal immigrants would not be able to receive any sort of subsidies because there'd be too much Um, need for proof about where they were born and where they all their paper ark would have

to be in order to get these subsidies. Um, but as possible, they would be able to enter the exchange and buy insurance because um, they would be you know subject. I mean, there's nothing that would keep them out of the market place. I want to pay. Then, welcome to the to the game. Well, but some people aren't ready to stay. Welcome to the game, right, Molly. I am looking forward to your second career as a diplomat. Seriously.

Thank you again for coming in, and we'll see you next time when we cover another one of your articles, which just health care systems around the world and how they compare to the US. Dr Royson's gonna be back, yes, so we'll Chuck's goatee. We'll talk about different countries. People are already emailing saying what about us in Canada and England, and Chuck's been responding with pipe down. We're going to get to you right. Keep your pants on it. If

you're looking for a place to move. I think that that podcast will be really helpful. Okay. In the meantime, UM, you can basically take advantage of Molly Edmonds giant sponge like brain uh and learn everything you need to know about healthcare reform by typing healthcare reform in the handy

search bar at how stuff works dot com. And by the way, if you want to send us an email praising us, condemning us, telling us that we're in favor of illegal immigration, whatever, just send it to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is that how stuff works dot com. Want more house stuff works, check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you