Talking ‘Affordable Care Act’ with Manchin
Washington told Manchin, he felt the senator was in a unique position of understanding the legislation and its impact, having been governor when it was passed.
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However, Washington said he felt the expansion program had been a "disaster."
"Premiums have gone through the roof, coverage has shrunk, no one has benefited from it and that's something that really needs to go away," Washington said. "We need to figure out how to deal with insurance companies when it comes to health care, the only parties that are benefiting in health care in this country are insurance companies and that largely has to do with a monopoly system."
Washington said with "only one game in town" in
"Those few insurance companies that hold that power are enriching themselves while they provide no value added to the health care system," Washington said. "They are not touching patients, they are getting rich off this and something has to happen to bring some level of competition to insurance companies. Patients are suffering with premiums, providers are suffering because there's no competition, there's only one game in town."
Washington said he was intrigued by tearing down the state borders in the health insurance industry.
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Manchin said he had heard President-Elect
"It's a tough system..the more competition into markets, the better we all are," Manchin said. "That's the simplest and easiest way because competition is out there."
Painkillers and how they're prescribed also was a topic with
"They're doing 10 pills, 15 pills...here locally, we're trying to do the right thing," Fruth said.
Manchin agreed that the AMA is not held accountable and 30-day prescriptions had been written for pain medications for things like tooth extractions. Manchin also commended Fruth for voluntarily taking certain allergy medication commonly used in the making of methamphetamine, off the shelves of her pharmacy.
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