On Monday evening, Missouri Senate candidate Austin Petersen appeared on Fox Business Network’s “Kennedy” to speak about health care, as well as the primary election taking place on Tuesday.
Petersen’s primary challenger in the Republican Party is Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, who is backed by President Trump and several other D.C. players.
KENNEDY: There are a number of primaries across country tomorrow, and the midterms just a few months away. At least a dozen Democrats running for governor this year have pledged to bring universal health care in some form to their states. So why is this single-payer nightmare gaining so much traction on the Left? Let me ask someone who’s competing in a GOP primary for the U.S. Senate in Missouri tomorrow. He’s also a former candidate for the Libertarian nomination for president in 2016. Austin Petersen is here. Welcome back, Austin.
PETERSEN: Nice to see you, Kennedy. Thanks for having me.
KENNEDY: So let’s talk a little bit about this single-payer health care because it’s not just universal health care, it’s single-payer, government-backed health care in places like Colorado and New York and maybe even Missouri. What’s pushing this trend?
PETERSEN: Well, everything is free under democratic socialism except for the people. California tried to implement this [but] had to drop it because they realized it was going to double their annual budget to $400 billion a year, and they couldn’t afford it. Bernie Sanders’ nightmarish fever dream that he wants to foist on the rest of us they say will cost $31 trillion over ten years. Yikes. That’s a big bite out of our budget, even if we raise taxes.
But if we doubled our taxes, The Wall Street Journal reports, we still wouldn’t be able to pay for these kinds of health care schemes. You know, the conservative Republicans in Congress have been floating proposals that I think would really bust up the insurance cartels because, frankly, the problem is that we don’t have competition in our health care system. But Rand Paul, who’s an eye doctor, he knows for sure that we’ve had the quality come up and the costs come down because we haven’t had third-party payers in our eye insurance [market] – there is no eye insurance market. So, frankly, if we had more free markets in our health care, if we had more competition, I think we’d see the costs come down and the quality would go up.
KENNEDY: Yes, if you have some people who just got catastrophic plans and other people who actually shopped for the plans they wanted with elements that they desired, you would certainly see costs come down – and that’s the effective way to do it. And it’s interesting because progressives act as though profit is a four-letter word when it’s not. That’s the thing that [leads to innovation], which saves and prolongs people’s lives, you know? In places like California and even New York, you do have stalled plans in the legislatures because, you know, one chamber says, “Oh, this is a great idea! We need to help everyone out,” and the other actually pulls out a calculator and says, “We can’t do this” because even if you have a 15% payroll tax increase, you are still hurting small business owners who are the ones who deserve more choice [and] economic mobility.
PETERSEN: I’m a small business owner. I have been victimized by Obamacare. I’ve had my health insurance canceled twice. I’ve been all over the state of Missouri in the last year and people cannot afford these skyrocketing deductibles or these premiums.
KENNEDY: Are you going to win tomorrow?
PETERSEN: Am I going to win? Well, actually, I’m the only Republican who’s shown that they can beat Claire McCaskill. I’m the only Republican in a state where Trump won by 19 points who has a double-digit lead over Claire McCaskill. And you know why I beat her, Kennedy? Because when we did the poll, we found out that independents, libertarians, and even some Democrats who care about civil liberties come over and vote for me in a general election.
KENNEDY: Claire McCaskill has been awful. She’s been all over the map, and in many ways, she has pledged her allegiance to the president, which has to be very confusing for Democratic voters in your state. You’ve been a libertarian in the past. If this doesn’t work out, are you going back to the Libertarian Party?
PETERSEN: I’m pro-life, pro-liberty, and pro-Constitution. I’m the strongest Senate candidate against Claire McCaskill. As a constitutional conservative, I will protect all of our freedoms all of the time.
KENNEDY: And you’re a politician because you didn’t answer the question.
PETERSEN: No, I’m going to stick with the Republican Party because my people asked me to, and because I believe it’s the party of abolitionism and the party of freedom, and I will work to make America free again.
KENNEDY: So, you will not run for president on the Libertarian ticket in 2020?
PETERSEN: No, I’ll leave that to my betters.
KENNEDY: Who’s that? Someone whose name rhymes with Rustin Skamash?
PETERSEN: I do like Congressman Justin Amash; I think he does a great job in the House of Representatives.
KENNEDY: Okay, best of luck tomorrow, Austin Petersen. Let us know how you do. You’ve got a lot of support out there.