Former Member of the European Parliament Daniel Hannan On Repealing Obamacare: The Obamacare System Is A Cage Around Your Economy

After 17 years as a Member of the European Parliament, campaigning for British withdrawal from the EU, Daniel Hannan succeeded in abolishing his job in the Brexit referendum on June 23,2016. Now an author and journalist, Hannan joined Kilmeade and Friends Monday to discuss President Trump meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel later this week, how US healthcare compares to the UK’s system, Brexit outcome and more.

Daniel Hannan on the state of the United States healthcare system:

There’s a great kind of tyranny of the status quo and this is why if you’re going to get rid of Obamacare you have to do it now. Once it beds down it’s almost impossible. I think the Obamacare system is a cage around your economy. I think there’s evidence that some employers are not wanting to take on more than 49 members of staff or not wanting people to work more than 30 hours and simply undoing those restrictions I think will give this country a huge boost, certainly a much greater boost than all of the boondoggles that were done in the name of tarp. So I’m very optimistic as I look forward. There are better and worse reforms but almost anything is better than the current system.

Hannan on the UK healthcare system:

Our system compared to other industrialized countries is not delivering very well. It’s not the worst in the world but it’s pretty poor. Everyone is covered except for dentistry and eye care but if you don’t have rationing by price you have rationing by queue, and people often have to wait for months before they get seen. The result also is that you have lower survival rates. If you get stroke, heart disease, cancer, it’s almost the worst place in the advanced world to be. It’s very, very difficult because if you criticize it, it’s seen as attacking all the nurses and this is why the one thing I would say to America, this is your call not mine, but if you’re going to change it do it right now as seems to be happening.

Hannan on similarity between Brexit and President Trump’s win:

I think what the two have in common is an anger against the failings of the existing political elite. One of my constituents summarized it beautifully before the vote. She said “this the working classes against the smirking classes.” The British class system is so opaque we barely understand it ourselves, let alone trying to explain it to friends. But I think most Americans will get the gist of what she meant by that.

Hannan on Angela Merkel’s expected visit with President Trump this week:

Angela Merkel, she’s a child of her generation. She was brought up in the post-war period to be terrified of an independent Germany, to think that the nation couldn’t trust itself and therefore like most Germans of that age she’s kind of been taught that the only acceptable patriotism is that a European rather than as a German. I understand that, in a way it’s a perfectly honorable thing but it’s just out of date and it’s out of kilter with how people feel.

Watch Daniel Hannan’s full interview with Brian Kilmeade below: