Wyoming Liberty Group

Charlie Katebi and KVOC’s Chuck Gray discuss Governor Mead’s intentions to pass Medicaid Expansion In Wyoming, one of Obamacare’s most disastrous provisions. October 6, 2015

For most of us, our healthcare is paid for by someone else; either our employer or a government entitlement program.  When someone else is paying, why bother shopping around for the best price?  Now an innovative new company has found a way to make patients cost-conscious and lower prices.

Since World War II, employer-sponsored insurance has remained an untaxed benefit.  Companies began offering health insurance to attract workers after the Roosevelt Administration imposed wage freezes.   These benefits became so popular that large employers successfully lobbied the IRS to exempt health coverage from taxation in 1943.  This allowed businesses to compensate workers through untaxed benefits.  And workers enjoy untaxed compensation in the form of health insurance.

Wyomingites pays more for health insurance than residents of any other state. And thanks to Obamacare, we’re about to pay a lot more. Starting in 2018, employer-based health plans that exceed $10,200 in premiums for individuals and $27,500 for families will be hit with a whopping 40 percent “Cadillac Tax.” If you receive health insurance through your work, get ready to pay a lot more for it. And even if you don’t, be prepared for higher taxes.

In a promising moment of bipartisan agreement, members of Wyoming’s Joint Labor, Health and Social Services Committee began drafting legislation that will allow patients and physicians to contract directly with each other and escape our disastrously overregulated insurance system.

This legislation will strengthen every Wyoming resident’s Constitutional right to health freedom.  As stated:

Lovell, WY- The Wyoming Liberty Group testified in favor of Direct Primary Care before the Joint Labor, Health, and Social Services Interim Committee this week, an innovative healthcare payment plan that if exempted from state insurance regulations would expand health access at a fraction of the cost of traditional health insurance.

“Direct Primary Care has lowered healthcare costs for patients in other states because it aligns the interests of patients with their doctors,” said Charlie Katebi, WyLiberty’s Healthcare Policy Analyst. “When patients pay a single fee for their care, it is in their doctor’s interest to keep them as healthy as possible, as cost effectively as possible.”

Testimony of Charlie Katebi, Healthcare Policy Analyst, Wyoming Liberty Group

Before the Labor, Health, and Social Services Committee
August 24, 2015

Direct Primary Care-Insurance Exemption

Introduction:

My name is Charlie Katebi. I am a Policy Analyst at The Wyoming Liberty Group. I would like to express my thanks to the Joint Labor, Health and Social Services Committee for the opportunity to speak here this morning.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is the perfect example of socialized healthcare. The federal government owns all the hospitals, employs all the staff, and leaves patients to languish and sometimes die on waitlists. A year after news broke that VA hospitals kept veterans waiting months to see a doctor, including in Wyoming, the VA still refuses to admit its methods endangered veterans. But new evidence reveals that the agency’s practices are disastrous for our wounded warriors.