John Thune

For if you've got representative rural hospitals like I do, I think the states are going to take full advantage of that in trying to ensure that we've got health care that's accessible to people all across the country, including in rural areas.

But I think to your point, the Democrats' view of this is to extend Obamacare and particularly pieces of Obamacare that are rife with waste, fraud, and abuse.

And our approach on that has always been

You know, let's instead of enriching the insurance companies and the way this thing is structured, particularly these enhanced Biden subsidies, structured in a way that incentivizes insurance companies to auto-enroll people.

So you got a lot of people out there who don't even know they're covered, don't know they have insurance because they're not paying anything.

They got $0 premiums.

They're auto-enrolled by the insurance company, which is getting the payment directly from the government.

There are no income caps.

So now you've got people making $500,000 or $600,000 a year who are getting subsidies from the federal taxpayers on health insurance.

So that model, that business model is not what we are for.

What we do believe makes sense is a model that creates for expansion of health savings accounts.

And putting the money back in the pockets of people in this country, incentivizing them to buy the insurance that makes sense for them rather than buying the insurance the government tells them they have to buy.

And so they get a better rate, lower premium, and better access to coverage.

And I think those are things – those are elements of healthcare policy that we think make sense and none of which were included in what the Democrats voted on last week or what the Democrats in the House are trying to get done over there now.

Well, I will tell you this, Tim.

One of the reasons we cast so many votes this year, early on especially, is because the Democrats took unprecedented steps to basically blow up the nominations process.

President Trump is the first president in history

who didn't have one of his nominees to a position in his administration confirmed either by voice vote or unanimous consent in the Senate, which is a way of taking non-controversial nominees and be able to move them and get them in their position.

The Democrats were so dug in fighting President Trump that even the most non-controversial positions in his administration, they forced us to do the long way.

So we spent the first six months doing it the long way, and it just got to the point where, you know, the president is sitting there.