Mike Rogers: “You know, if you go up and have to pay the doctor $50 for your annual physical, that’s probably okay, right?”
LANSING — A breaking report from Bridge Michigan reveals new details about Mike Rogers’ toxic health care agenda. Audio of Rogers speaking at a recent campaign event reveals his plan includes “ending no-cost preventive care” and “recreating a form of high-risk insurance pools.” Health care experts panned Rogers’ plan as “so crazy,” saying it would cause health care costs to skyrocket for patients with pre-existing conditions and lead to more “undiagnosed chronic diseases [that] can spiral out of control and require expensive treatment.”
“Mike Rogers’ plan is to make health care more expensive and rip away care from Michiganders with pre-existing conditions,” said Michigan Democratic Party spokesperson Joey Hannum. “Rogers thinks Michiganders should be forced to pay new out-of-pocket costs for basic services like blood pressure, diabetes and cancer screenings—meanwhile, he’s fully on board with giving more handouts to multi-millionaires like himself. Price Hike Mike’s health care plan is shameful, and Michiganders will reject it in November.”
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Bridge Michigan: Senate hopeful Mike Rogers floats copays, high-risk pools for health care
- Republican US Senate candidate Mike Rogers recently told supporters he is interested in ending no-cost preventive care for health insurance plans and creating “catastrophic funds” for the sickest Americans.
- “You know, if you go up and have to pay the doctor $50 for your annual physical, that’s probably okay, right?” Rogers told supporters at a March 21 event in Macomb County, according to a recording reviewed by Bridge Michigan.
- Rogers was responding to a question from an attendee who asked him what could be done to lower health care costs. Rogers said he’d be releasing a full health care plan in the coming weeks that would “embrace the freedom of the free market” to start lowering prices.
- His comments on preventive care copays and creating separate insurance pools for sick patients would undo two promises of the Affordable Care Act.
- Rogers’ campaign did not directly respond to requests for clarification about his remarks.
- In the event with supporters, Rogers likened free preventive care — as guaranteed by the Affordable Care Act — to “an auto insurance plan that would pay for your blinker’s light going out.” That would be a great insurance plan, but one that would cost drivers more, he explained.
- “We need to start changing the way we look at health care,” Rogers said.
- A major provision of the Affordable Care Act requires insurers to provide certain preventive care services, such as blood pressure, diabetes and cancer screenings — notably at no cost to the patient.
- Anand Parekh, chief policy officer at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, argued that if people skip preventive care because of costs, undiagnosed chronic diseases can spiral out of control and require expensive treatment.
- In his remarks, Rogers also suggested the federal government establish “catastrophic funds” to lower premiums, appearing to embrace the concept of high-risk pools while noting “the sickest part of our society ends up consuming the most” medical services.
- “So we’re going to pay our premium based on what a normal life would be, not including these people who are really, really sick,” Rogers said.
- He added: “We take the really sick people and put them in this fund that we all pay a little bit. The government pays, the hospital pays, Medicare would pay a little bit.”
- Before the ACA, nearly three dozen states had high-risk pools for people with significant medical needs who couldn’t otherwise get insurance. The ACA essentially eliminated the need for those pools by mandating insurers cover patients with pre-existing conditions.
- “This turns out to be expensive for consumers and government,” said Parekh, who also served as the chief medical advisor at the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center.
- Returning to high-risk pool policies would be “just so crazy,” said Fendrick, telling Bridge the pools are among a series of ideas “that have been floated around conceptually for decades, but never had the policy or political chops behind” them.
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