Blunt Discusses Graham-Cassidy Health Care Plan

WASHINGTON – Yesterday, U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.) spoke on the Senate floor about the failures of Obamacare and how the Graham-Cassidy health care plan would help families struggling under the law. Blunt emphasized the benefits of moving the decision-making away from Washington and allowing states to shape health care solutions closer to home.

CLICK HERE To Watch Senator Blunt’s Full Remarks

Following are excerpts from Blunt’s remarks:

“Every family knows that at some point they’re going to deal with not one, but multiple health care issues as life progresses, as things happen in life, at times that you don’t expect them to happen in life, and nothing is more riveting or focusing than health care. Somebody told me one time… when everybody in your family is well, you’ve got lots of problems, when somebody in your family is sick, you’ve got one problem. …

“Access to health care matters and health care that works where you live matters. And frankly, that’s the plan that Senator Cassidy and Senator Graham have come up with. A plan that would take the decision making for government assisted healthcare out of Washington and put it back in the states. …

“What we’re trying to look at right now, is taking all the money we’re currently spending in this government assisted health care world, divide it up among the states in a more equitable way. Right now, four of the states get about 37 percent of all the money. You don’t have to be a math genius to figure out that that means that the other 46 states must get about 63 percent of all the money. Now, if 37 percent of all the people in the country lived in those four states, that might be a reasonable way to divide up the money. Or even if 37 percent of all the people with income and health needs that were so significant that they needed more help than everybody else, lived in those four states, that might be a reasonable way to divide up all of the money. But neither of those things are true. …

“One size fits all almost never fits anybody. And even in a state, it’s hard enough to come up with a plan that fits everybody in the state, in the best possible way. But, we’d be much more likely to do that than we would to suggest that what happens in Manhattan and what happens in Marshfield, Missouri are the same thing, because they’re not. And people in New York are going to come up with a more likely way to address those issues and figure out what health care is there, what they need to do to augment that, what they need to do to be sure that that’s available to the most people, in the most cost-effective way. And in Jefferson City, Missouri, they are more likely to find out how to answer all of those questions, for our state, than frankly, they are at the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C.”