Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) told The Tennessee Star in an exclusive interview that the new Republicans’ bill proposal would send money back to Americans rather than to insurance companies.
Last week, Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) introduced the Health Care Freedom for Patients Act of 2025.
This bill will help return money to Americans by expanding access to Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). Americans through Health Savings Accounts. The bill allows Americans to deposit money into these accounts. Anyone aged 18 to 49 can contribute $1,000 to an HSA each year, while those aged 50 to 64 can contribute $1,500.
With the money, Americans would be able to pay for medical expenses such as doctor visits and prescriptions.
Blackburn said the Obamacare bronze and silver plans will be eligible for HSAs.
Americans want an insurance product that gives them “choice and options” instead of government control, the senator noted on Tuesday.
“ Expanding the use of these HSAs and opening this opportunity for that to be an option in the marketplace is going to see more insurance providers that would make an HSA product available,” Blackburn said.
She added that Democrats don’t want to expand HSAs, but instead want to expand Biden-era healthcare subsidies that cost American taxpayers $83 billion.
The senator noted that during the Biden administration, the administration provided healthcare subsidies that lifted income caps, allowing people who were making $500,000 or more to have their health insurance subsidized by American taxpayers.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, if these subsidies had been extended, they would have cost American taxpayers $383 billion from 2025 to 2034.
Regarding Obamacare, Blackburn said “fraud has run rampant, which is one of the “reasons it is so broken.”
Blackburn told The Star that, among the estimated 24 million Americans on Obamacare, about half have never used their policy.
“This is one of the reasons you don’t want to send money directly to the insurance companies, because you have brokers that are enrolling people in these policies [and] they don’t even know they’re enrolled,” Blackburn said.
“They never use the health insurance because they don’t know they have it. But the insurance company and the broker have the money. They have gotten their commissions; they have gotten their checks from Obamacare,” she added.
A Government Accountability report released earlier this month showed Obamacare had 6.4 million improper enrollees and 100,000 identical Social Security numbers.
To curb fraud in Obamacare, the bill will require verification of citizenship or lawful immigration status to receive Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) funding.
Blackburn noted that the One Big Beautiful Bill put limits on states so they couldn’t give illegal immigrants healthcare coverage. When states provide healthcare for illegals, she stated that it drives up the costs of healthcare for everyone.
The University of California at Berkley estimated that, before the state implemented Medicaid coverage for all residents, regardless of immigration status, the 2024 expansion would allow over 500,000 illegal immigrants to receive state Medicaid benefits.
On top of this bill, Blackburn told The Star in the reconciliation bill at the beginning of January that Republicans will include more healthcare reforms that increase additional access to HSAs, allow for “across state line purchase of health insurance,” and “rein in” the healthcare middlemen, such as pharmacy benefit managers.
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Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network. Email tips to Zachery at zschmidt1717@gmail.com.
