In a time when medical price gouging is stronger than ever, Chris Faddis joins Bob Sansevere of The BS Show to talk about what’s on the horizon to correct the unjust cost increases Americans are facing. Click the link above to list to the full interview.

Bob Sansevere (00:00):

We are joined by Christopher Faddis, co-founder and president of the nonprofit Healthcare Sharing Ministry Solidarity HealthShare, which is an ethical, affordable alternative to traditional health insurance and is faithful to the moral teachings of the Catholic Church. Now, Chris, there’s something that I find to be a little alarming, and it is that hospital price transparency, the transparency part is going down and it’s supposed to be a federal mandate. I thought that they have price transparency, but it’s gotten to the point where what just 21% of 2000 hospitals that were reviewed were in full compliance to publicly post the list of prices for common treatments and services, and that was according to a report that came out by patient rights advocates. I don’t understand how they can get away with this. There’s no penalty.

Chris Faddis (00:49):

Yeah, I mean, there’s supposed to be some enforcement. I don’t remember if there’s actually a penalty. I think there’s an enforcement, and then there’s also these negotiation standards that are supposed to take place. I think those are all things that were supposed to be happening, and they were supposed to add more enforcement measures to it, but at the end of the day, they are supposed to be doing this. They are supposed to be held accountable. There are some penalties in place, and the bottom line is the administration’s not doing it. Whoever is in charge over an HHS of this process, it’s just not happening. In fact, we had some of our people tell us that when we report on behalf of our members’ violations of the No Surprises Act, they’re always kind like, wow, you’re the only ones reporting. We’re surprised. We’re hearing from you like, oh, you actually are using the law.

(01:38):

Oh, kind of attitude towards it. So it’s very frustrating. There was some action maybe two or three years ago that kind of helped to push a few more hospitals into the transparency piece, but then really what’s happened is everyone’s called the Bluff and been like, Hey, no one really cares. Let’s just keep doing what we’re doing. And so it’s a real frustration. Now, I will say there’s been some help here. The No Surprises Act has given us more teeth when it comes to holding these providers accountable for our members, and we’ve seen a lot of success in our usage of that. But again, it’s not at the larger scale of where it’s supposed to help. It’s not fully working.

Bob Sansevere (02:18):

Well, do you think that the new administration, the Trump administration, it will be better? Will they continue to hold these mandates in place? Do you think they’ll do away with them or like I said, make ’em tougher?

Chris Faddis (02:28):

No, I think they’re going well. I think for one, I think that they will do a better job enforcing the law on hand. I also do think there’s a great opportunity and potential for us to have more enforcement, sorry, more laws created that will advance this. And so that’s been a lot of the talk is let’s expand on this and let’s actually take it to the full value of what it could be. I saw something today that one of the measures of the transparency bills out there that is floating around would save Americans a billion dollars a year. That’s actually, that sounds like a lot of money. It’s a lot of money for you and me, but it’s not when you spread out, but you think about the fact that, yeah, we’re spending $4.8 trillion and at least a third of that is waste. A billion is really not far enough. We’ve got to get further. So that’s an insane number, Bob, if you think about that, I think it’s 1.6 or 1.8 million, 8 trillion of that money is waste. That’s a massive amount of money that could, I mean, that’s greater than the GDP of many countries combined, right?

Bob Sansevere (03:37):

It’s incredible.

Chris Faddis (03:39):

Yes, absolutely. So we have a long way to go. A billion, a couple trillion is a lot of ground to make up. So I’m hopeful though. I think there’s enough discussion, enough people talking about it. The problem is what happens is people go, yeah, that’s just why we need universal healthcare. And people don’t realize that that’s not the solution. What’s going to happen in universal healthcare is just more of the same problem. We’re just going to pay for it out of taxes instead of out of our paychecks. It’s all going to still affect us, and they’re going to use the same corporations and corporate greed to deliver that care. We have to deal with the transparency. If we don’t deal with the transparency, we should never talk about creating a government program for healthcare because it’s going to cost even more. We have to deal with this. We’ve got to get control of the $4.8 trillion spend in healthcare and get rid of all that waste before we ever talk about a bureaucratic solution for this.

Bob Sansevere (04:40):

The thing I’m hopeful now are you’re not the ones like wringing your hands because Robert Kennedy Jr. Will be in charge of HHS, right? I mean, do you view it as a wait and see, or you’re not many from the Democrats are in panic over it? Where are you on that?

Chris Faddis (05:01):

Again, I’m not endorsing any candidate or anyone’s campaign, but let me just say that I am all for somebody who’s successfully sued the federal government 40 some times and knows where all the bodies are coming in and saying, Hey, I know what we need to do to clean up. I’ve seen all the discovery on how they’re doing these things and the things they’re doing they shouldn’t be doing. So I’m all for it. I think the reality is we have got to get a handle on our healthcare system in this country. We spend far more than any other country per person, and we have far lower health outcomes, and we’re not doing well, right? We are really not doing well as a country in healthcare. So there’s a lot of great change. In fact, some of the other appointments that they’ve made, Dr. Marty McCarey, who you and I have talked about before, who not only was the really reasoned but truthful person on some of the COVID issues and was ostracized for it, by the way, but he also is, he wrote a book called The Price We Pay, which was all about price transparency.

(06:05):

So he’s over the what? I think he’s over the, what did we decide, the CDC or one of the agencies, they put him over that maybe it was the FDA. But anyway, there’s a lot of good people in there that I think they’re not just trying to burn it all down. I think they really have good handle on what needs to be done, and they’re not beholden to big medicine, big insurance, big hospital. And that’s an important problem to solve. So

Bob Sansevere (06:32):

Absolutely. Now, the other thing that is, I mean, it’s going to hit seniors and me. There’s two questions. One, why are seniors going to pay about 6% more in 2025 for their Part B plan? And is it because these companies are claiming they’re not getting enough money, the hospitals aren’t getting enough, who’s not getting enough money, and why is it going up? I mean, that’s a big jump it seems.

Chris Faddis (06:58):

Yeah. I mean, I think a big part of this is part B, by the way, covers doctor’s visits, outpatient care, preventative service, all of that, and the deductibles going to go will rise. That’s a big part of it. Not a ton. It goes from $240 to $257, but when you’re a senior on a fixed income, a full 30 and maybe a small retirement, you notice that, right? And then I think there’s a need to look at why is that? And here’s what I’ll say is in general, doctors’ pay has not gone up at a meaningful rate for the last 40 years. Really. In fact, it’s gone down in many cases. And if you look at the overall current dollar of healthcare spend, about 8 to 9% of that goes to doctors. So when we say that these prices are going up for doctor’s visits, well, why is that? Well, it’s because of our reimbursement rates to the hospital system owned practices. That’s why. So Obamacare ushered in a rule that allows for the payers, including Medicare, to pay a higher rate to doctor offices that are within a system. So when you go to the doctor’s office that’s owned by Mayo Clinic or Allina Health or would name your big healthcare system, they are getting a higher reimbursement than Dr. Joe down the street who’s been in practice for 40 years and never sold it, sold to the hospital system.

(08:26):

And so that reality is that over the last 15 years, the consolidation of doctor’s offices into healthcare systems has been massive. Bob. I mean, if you looked at a map of how many independent clinics there were 10 years ago versus today, it would almost look like they completely disappeared. And so that has greatly increased the pay and the cost. And so that’s affecting everybody. It affects all insurance plans, it affects Medicare. And so that’s a big part of it, I think.

Bob Sansevere (08:56):

Yeah. Well, that makes sense. But I mean there’s also talk and have you heard anything? You do have context in Washington. The Trump administration is not looking to dismantle Medicare and or Social Security, correct? Or do you know?

Chris Faddis (09:10):

Not that I’ve heard of. I mean, every so often do you still hear those ideas float around? But I haven’t heard anything meaningful on that. I haven’t seen anything coming from the administration for sure. Now, it doesn’t mean that that couldn’t happen in the next four years if someone would propose that obviously things like that would require Congress in a big way, but I don’t think so. I think in fact, what I think we’ll see is more action on the subsidies that were increased under the COVID emergency powers and all of that. That all expires this year. So there’ll be a huge debate on keeping that. My understanding is that Democrats are going to use that as a bargaining chip to get tax. The tax stuff has to get done this year as well, making, they have to renew Trump’s tax cuts from 2017, so they’ll use the subsidies as a big thing. So that’s a big deal. I mean, way more Americans are qualifying for subsidies under Obamacare than ever before, which is adding to the grift of the insurance companies because they just keep ratcheting up their rates and the federal government pays them that extra dollar to offset the cost of care. And so it’s a big problem, and I think we’re going to see that. I think Republicans want to remove those extra subsidies, but there’s going to be a big fight on that this year.

Bob Sansevere (10:26):

Well, I’ll say this, if the Trump administration were to cut impact Medicare or Social Security, he could forget about trolling both the House and the Senate and having his own party reelected in four years, that will put an end to that.

Chris Faddis (10:43):

So, that’s a big one. It’s a’s a no-go for most people. No, I think if you want to work on how do we fix that, how do we improve those things, that’s a great solution. But yeah, let’s try to work on fixing instead of just getting rid of everything.

Bob Sansevere (10:56):

Yes. And I want to just remind people, solidarity health share solidarityhealthshare.org. Great alternative to traditional healthcare.

Chris Faddis (11:05):

Bob, speaking of Medicare, real quick, I just want to say it is something that we don’t always remind people, but for many years we didn’t have a great solution for people on Medicare, but we now have that Medicare compliment program. So if people are looking at what to do with their healthcare, they can look at Solidarity as a compliment to their Medicare. And many people do not need the part B and all that stuff. And then they get all the great benefits of working with our team while they’re still on Medicare.

Bob Sansevere (11:30):

Wonderful. That’s great. I’m glad you mentioned that. Great for people to know. And again, solidarityhealthshare.org is where you can find all that information. Thank you, Chris. We’ll take a quick break. The BS Show’ll be right back.

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