The Daily Signal - #414: Doctors Diagnose Medicare for All's Problems

Episode Date: March 11, 2019

Few issues have animated conservatives as much as Obamacare. But there’s a new threat on the horizon. It’s called Medicare for All—and it would be a massive government takeover of your health care. The Daily Signal spoke with three medical doctors who are serving in the U.S. House—Reps. Scott DesJarlais, Paul Gosar, and Andy Harris—to talk about it and their solutions for a patient-centered alternative.Also on today’s show:• Mykala Steadman shares a story about Zechariah Cartledge, a 10-year-old who started Running for Heroes to honor first responders and the military. facebook.com/Running4Heroes• Your letters to the editor. Next week your letter could be featured on our show; write us at [e-mail] or call 202-608-6205.The Daily Signal podcast is available on the Ricochet Audio Network. You also can listen on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts.If you like what you hear, please leave a review or give us feedback. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, March 11th. I'm Rob Blewey. And I'm Michaela Stedbun. Few issues have animated conservatives as much as Obamacare. But there's a new threat on the horizon. It's called Medicare for All, and it would be a massive government takeover of your health care. I sat down with three medical doctors who are serving in the U.S. House to talk about it and their solutions for a patient-centered alternative. We also have your letters to the editor. And a story about a 10-year-old boy who is a honoring fallen police officers in a unique way. Before we begin, we'd like to ask you to help us spread the word about the Daily Signal podcast.

Please give us a five-star review on iTunes and share this episode with your family and friends. That will help us make sure that we are continuing to grow and reach more listeners. Stay tuned for today's show coming up next. We're joined today by Congressman Paul Gossar of Arizona, Congressman Scott DeGerle of Tennessee, and Congressman Andy Harris of Maryland. All three of them are. doctors and so today's conversation is going to be focused on health care. Now, Congressman, I want to ask about not only some of the problems that we find in health care today, but also some of the

solutions that you have. One of the things that we've seen in the initial burst of questions is Medicare for All. Some of your colleagues on the left have put quite a radical proposal on the table, and as doctors, I want to ask you to weigh in on what you think about it. Congressman Harris, would you like to begin? Sure. Look, the Medicare for All plan that was announced a couple of weeks, ago by my Democratic colleagues, over a hundred of them, really will result in care for none. That's the bottom line. You can't offer free care to everyone and expect anything but rationing to be the result. The costs are huge. We already have a trillion dollar deficit in the federal government spending. To add more to it will result in rationing. When you dissect

this plan piece by piece, including the elimination of all private insurance, not even socialized medicine in England has that proviso. So we go well beyond the socialized medical schemes of Europe in the Medicare for All plan. It's just going to be a non-starter. Congressman Deja Leigh, we actually have a question from Tennessee from Catherine of Murfreesboro. If I'm pronounced Murphy'sboro. Murphreysboro. Okay, thank you for correcting me. It says with your experience and your medical practice, can you explain why Medicare for All is a bad idea when it comes to quality of care, provider satisfaction, fiscal impact, and the patient provider relationship? Sure, well, thank you, Catherine, for calling in.

It's always good to hear from Tennessee. I guess when I think of Medicare for All, I think, what can you compare that to? What would it be like? And I think right now a system that everybody knows and is aware of is the VA system. And the VA system, in a way, is similar for the veterans. And the biggest complaint you hear most times out of the VA system is long wait times or sometimes poor access to specialists. And can you just imagine what it would be like if you turn the whole country into a system right now that we can't handle on a smaller scale?

So, you know, I think that the relationship with providers would be diminished because access would be inferior. And right now, if you go to a VA and you can't be seen within a reasonable amount of time at that VA, you're farmed out to specialists in the area. Oftentimes that's dubious too because specialists sometimes are reluctant to take patients because the payer system is so well. poor. And so you find it harder and harder to get access to these specialists. So I think, one, the relationship between the patient would be poor. Your access to medical care would be poorer and delayed. And, you, honestly, I think it's inconceivable that it would even work or get off the ground and be cost prohibitive. But Congressman Gosar, I mean, your colleagues on the Democratic parties say that it's so popular. I mean, who doesn't like free things? What are the consequences,

though, of a policy like this? Well, the thing about it, when they say it's free, it's always popular. but when they actually find out how much their taxes are going to be raised, it drops dramatically into the 30% approval aspect. That's the key here, is that nothing is free. But there's alternatives here. Once again, how about market-driven applications that we haven't seen since 1964? You know, making insurance compete for the marketplace, taking away the Sherman and Clayton antitrust exemptions so that they compete not only for your business but for the doctor's provisions. All these things can be revolutionized, and who knows, what can actually happen. Well, let's talk about some of those solutions.

Obviously, you come from, you're a dentist, so you each have unique perspectives, and I'd like to go down the line and talk about each of you. In terms of the dental profession, talk both about what Medicare for all would mean and what a market-driven patient-focused solution is. Well, first of all, dentistry never took down Medicare. It walked away from the Medicare discussions in the late in mid-1960s, or 1960s. And therefore the same dollar you spent in 1970s, basically the same dollar you spend today in dentistry with inflationary only. Medicine is nowhere close to that. Because what's happened is there's been cost shifting. What the government hasn't covered, somebody else's had to pick up.

And that's why you've got problems. It is, in essence, a Ponzi scheme where you're flushing one group of people paying for the services of somebody else's. That's why I keep coming back to market forces. How about getting everybody broken down so they're competing for the marketplace so that people are paying. patient-focused, patient-friendly, patient-centered, and have the insurance industry actually compete for that marketplace. It's amazing what actually had happened. You see lower premiums, lower drug prices, lower doctor-and-hospital visits,

and it empowers people to create new ideas. So making a market-driven solution is actually beneficial. Congressman Dejurelay, you had a family practice, so what would it mean for those of you who, those patients you were serving? Well, again, I think access is the big thing. There just is not enough to go around. And when you consider that Medicare for all would eliminate what over half the country realizes now in an employer-based plan, most people, despite all the horrors we've heard about Obamacare, which is really bad,

you know, get their insurance through their employer. So it would change that and eliminate private insurance altogether. And so people would be left with what the government tells them they could have. And that was one of the biggest problems with Obamacare, was it mandated the type of health care you could have, mandated what you had to pay for. So people were paying for things that were more expensive than they needed. And that left a lot of people on the sidelines or with policies that they couldn't afford, or in the case if they could afford it, they couldn't go to see the doctor because of the deductibles and co-pays.

So I think that it really created a struggle among a certain group of people in the country that didn't have employer covered health care, weren't on Medicare or weren't on Medicare. So it really picked on a small group who had to disproportionately pay, as Dr. Gozar said. Well, I want to follow up on a couple of those points, but I want to give Congressman Harris an opportunity as a physician. What would you say from your perspective? Well, I was in anesthesiolis. I still am. I worked with specialists, mostly specialists.

I didn't work with primary care doctors in the operating room. And I will tell you, under the current Medicare program, you already have problems having access to specialists. Because the payment rates are low. The fact of the matter is, when the government determines a payment rate, it's going to determine a low payment rate. You're not going to have physicians going to be willing to do it. So my district is over half rural. It's very hard to find a specialist who will see a Medicare patient without getting in line to see it.

That's not what Americans expect. You know, the Medicare for All is not patient-driven. It's bureaucrat driven. It's going to be some bureaucrat deciding what you need and how to deliver care in your community. It doesn't work. You've got to give the patient's choice. Give them not a one-size-fits-all insurance policy like ACA did. Let them buy an insurance policy that fits them, fits their families.

You know, if you're young and healthy, you might choose a catastrophic policy with a medical savings account or health savings account. Give people more options and let the marketplace work. Now, on that note, though, you have a leading senator, liberal senator, who wants to end private insurance, says that that's the solution that we need to be pursuing. I mean, you're painting quite a different picture. Can you talk to us what that would mean? Sure. You know, look, if you like the DMV, you'll like government.

like government-driven health care. I mean, the bottom line is when the government controls something to a monopoly, what they're talking about is a monopoly. No private insurance. The DMV is a monopoly. Do you like it? Because if you like it, you'll love Medicare for All. Any other thoughts on that, Congress? I'm just thinking about what Medicare for all would cost. One of the biggest things we've looked at since we've been in Congress, we all came in together in the same class, was how are we going to pay from Medicare in the future. It's unsustainable in its current form. The cost are projected to go up and up and up. And the same thing, Medicaid doesn't have enough money,

the VA doesn't have enough money. So you've got three government systems that have been failing us all along, and yet they want to pivot and put everybody into a failing system that we can't afford now and make it even bigger. It just doesn't make sense. Well, I look at the aspect of what's on the other side. And what Medicare for All is actually is victimizing the patient. That's the key is that they're forced to do something. How about empowering them? You know, so the second part that I always talk about is HSA reform, where you're actually empowering people to invest in themselves. Healthcare is an individual sport, believe it or not, you know, that doctor-patient

relationship is very sanctosanct. And so when you empower that, particularly when you start looking at empowering those patients, put money aside, and then also maybe looking at redirecting the CSRs, you know, to veterans, you know, to Medicare recipients, to rebuild that marketplace. Amazing what happens. when patients are empowered with money to make their own decisions. I think most people like to be empowered versus victimized. Congressman, I'm going to stay with you because we have a question from Arizona. This comes from Bill Williams in Gold Canyon.

In my district. In your district. He says, we face a massive problem with growing entitlements, as you just mentioned. And Congress is willfully blind, assuming that most elected officials wish to avoid a future train rack and that solutions will inevitably be needed in time, What do you think we should start doing to solve this long-term entitlement crisis? Well, first of all, I always come back to keeping it simple stupid, and that is break everybody down to the lowest common denominator.

I don't think we know what the final solution looks like because we haven't liberated the market. Number one is empowering physicians to new creative markets. That means making an insurance industry, which is the primary means of reimbursement, to start competing, whereas right now they're in a collusionary type fashion. There's no necessity for them to branch out, to put out new market products. Make them compete against each other. That way physicians actually make more. They're empowered to be better entrepreneurs.

But also to put new innovative ideas out there. For example, like starting using the iPad, eyewatches, you know, to help monitor patients. There's a lot of different opportunities here. And then I think the other part to that is maybe tie in people with high risks to the certification of insurance in like a blind high risk. pool. Those shouldn't be scary applications. Those are actually situations that actually work. So we're rewarding people for solutions on those high-risk pools instead of pushing to a side. Thank you for that answer. I want to shift because we've been talking a lot of policy ideas here, but that's part of the equation. The other half is communicating that to the American people.

And as we saw in the 2018 election, healthcare was consistently ranked one of the top concerns on the minds of many voters. And when asked, they trusted Democrats. That's more than Republicans on that issue, or liberals over conservatives. So what is it that conservatives need to do to get their ideas across and gain the trust of the American people when it comes to health care? Well, I'll tell you, if Medicare for All doesn't scare the American public, it will. I mean, what Americans want, and I tell people, look, they want coverage. God forbid you have a pre-existing condition because everybody either has one

or afraid they're going to have one and know someone who has one. Once we clear that hurdle and we make it clear that our plans always cover someone with that. And whether it's, as Dr. Gosar says, a high-risk pooling mechanism, a reinsurance pooling mechanism like we have in Maryland, we just have to make sure that American people understand. We've always talked about that. Our American Health Care Act had it in it. We made sure that, God forbid, you have a pre-existing condition. You're covered.

You have some coverage. But for other people, you've got to make it affordable. And that's the most important mechanism. People need it to be, make sure that they can get it and make sure it's affordable. Now, I will tell you, if a state wants to make universal health care and wants to pay for it, God bless them. I mean, I'm a federalist. Let them go ahead and do that. Vermont and California thought about it.

And they both rejected it, both very liberal states rejected it because of the huge cost of a government-run program like this. Congressman Dejurley, how are you communicating this to your constituents? Well, yeah, I think we're at a real messaging disadvantage, and we have been, certainly since President Trump took office, if you look at the coverage of anything President Trump has done, it's about 90% negative. Sure. As compared to President Obama, who it was maybe 20% negative. So, you know, that's a hurdle that we face. And I think, like Dr. Harris said, if the people really understood what Medicare for all meant,

it doesn't just mean free health care, that they would be very frightened by it. So, you know, messaging has always been key. But, you know, President Trump has taken some great steps already to solve the health care problem. We got rid of the individual mandate when we passed the tax reform. bill that people are enjoying now. And he's also dealt with the pharmaceutical companies to bring more drugs to a generic price. It doesn't make sense that here in America, we pay two or three or four times as much for the same drug you can get in Canada, Mexico, or the place in the world.

So he's taken steps to address that. And then, you know, the Association Health Care Plans where these people who don't have insurance through their employer, they can band together and actually find lower premiums. And I think, you know, Dr. Goz, I brought two really good points. The health savings account empowers people and realize that. They have a card that they can swipe when they go to the doctor, and they pay for it right then and there, and that's money that they put in an account that's tax-deferred.

We need to expand those, and we've taken a lot of steps. He mentioned the high-risk pools. States like Maine have successfully done that, and that was center in the debate, but we don't get a fair and honest debate in the mainstream media. No, you certainly don't. Congressman GoSER. Well, I think it is that we actually have to bring the debate forward.

Instead of playing defense, we have to go on the offense. and this group of gentlemen right here were very responsible in regards to having those solutions that actually lowered rates, gave patients choice, and took in pre-existing conditions. These three guys were actually responsible for that. So we shouldn't be afraid of it. We should be actually going towards that. And I think any time you look at the application to say, listen, you know, the British system is failing, the Canadian system is failing.

Aren't we better than that? And when we start looking at the market-driven solutions, we haven't had a market-driven solution since 1964. It's been artificially based on government reimbursement rates. Aren't we better than that? Can't we do something better than empowers the patient, empowers the doctor, and recreates that system where patients are responsible, doctors are responsible, but there's an open market out there?

I think when you start to look at that, it's enticing about what can possibly be happening. Get people dreaming again. Last year, a federal district court in Texas ruled that Obamacare was unconstitutional. Can you bring us up to speed on what that means about the future of this debate on health care and where you might expect that case ultimately to end up? Congressman Harris? Well, you know, the background is that, of course, the landmark ruling, which Chief Justice Roberts, we think, took the wrong side on, was declaring that since it was a tax, the individual mandate was a tax,

therefore it was legitimately, the process was legitimate. once we removed the tax by removing the individual mandate in our reconciliation bill, the bottom line is that argument was removed. It's going to be up to the federal courts to say, okay, now that there's no tax, is this in fact a legitimate plan? Look, a court could rule now that, in fact, it's out the window. It gives us a chance to learn the lessons. What did we learn?

We learned that the American people really want coverage pre-existing conditions and make it clear to them that exists. We learned it. We're going to do it. We also know that that scheme was unaffordable because it didn't share risk across broad categories. We learned a lot from it. So I'm not scared of a federal judge saying that that's unconstitutional because we have a lot of knowledge. Hopefully this time we would have a bipartisan solution because when you enact anything this large in the government,

nothing works over time unless it's a bipartisan plan. And the ACA was clearly not a bipartisan plan. Congressman Desirely, President Trump just spoke at CPAC and said exactly, that message that he would like to bring together Republicans and Democrats to have a bipartisan solution to health care. Do you think that that's possible? Well, I think it should be because health care should be a nonpartisan thing. When I was in practice, I never treated a Democrat or a Republican. I just treated patients. And I think that's the way most people look at it, and they're very frustrated with what's going on in Washington with

the bickering. So I would like to think we could come together on this. It's going to be a difficult road, but certainly we're sitting here willing to have those conversations. And Congressman, go ahead, yes. Well, I think it's how you creatively get this done. I think, you know, one of the first things I brought up was breaking down the antitrust exclusion for the medical insurance industry. That's not a Democrat or Republican application, and I think bringing that up in this partisan foil or in this atmosphere, no one's going to vote for their insurance company over their

constituents. So this is a golden opportunity for that ball to drop. Number two is, why isn't the Senate having that conversation about HSA reform? You know, the Hoover Institute said that it was the next. best thing that we could do after the tax reforms that we passed last year or in 2017. So why not have that conversation right now, preemptively have that, empowering patients? Who is going to actually say no to patients controlling their destiny on their health care with their own tax dollars?

Interesting. And if you're creatively looking at CSRs, everybody wants to spend the money so it's spent, why not creatively build it so that actually people are empowered to be fundamentally part of the system instead of being victimized again? So I think there's some ways that we can change the ground rules, even in this partisan climate, that you actually set up a success instead of looking at being victims again of the system. Congressman Gosser, this comes to you again. It's from Bill Casal of Prescott, Arizona.

And he said, the radical left controls the agenda, and they seem only interested in endless witch hunts against the president and pushing socialist programs. He thanks you for being a stalwart conservatives, but asks what we can do to move beyond some of the headlines and get to these serious issues. So once again, one of the things that we've actually done, and Bill, it's a great question, is that how do we set up the system? How do you work the system for your benefit? So looking at what I just brought up forward. Now we're seeing the introduction of McCarran Ferguson,

which is that repeal of the Sherman and Clayton antitrust exemption, in the Senate. Amazing. And it's bipartisan. So who is going to stop that? Once again, the same thing we're asking over in the Senate to start the conversation about HSA reform. So there's a way when you have a way,

a divided government to steer that conversation so that people are actually having that conversation and having to vote on it. Any other follow-up comments? Look, this issue is not going to go away until, as you suggested, the Supreme Court rules one way or another. And in a divided Congress, now the only solution are bipartisan solutions. And we'll have another election. We'll discuss it again next year, and I'm sure people are going to watch.

Great. Well, if we could do a lightning round, I'm getting some questions. that are not on the topic of health care, but are quite pertinent into debates that we're having in Congress right now. So I'd like to ask you some of those. The first one is about efforts to protect human life. Of course, the Senate had a vote that failed on the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. I know there's a move here in the U.S. House on a discharge petition. There are other things that you're trying to do in terms of asking for unanimous consent on this consistently. What can you update our listeners on in terms of what's going on with that

legislation. Well, I mean, we're waiting. I mean, we're waiting for the clock to run out on the, on the petitioning, the bill to the floor. Which would be mid-April. Right, which would be around mid-April, but I think every member of Congress should have a position. Obviously, the Senate, every member of the Senate is now on record. Fortunately, a majority of senators, but not a large enough majority to proceed to debate and final passage thinks that it is wrong to have a baby born alive and not do everything you can to keep it alive. Having worked in the delivery room, seeing thousands of deliveries, I can't imagine a baby being born and everybody not rushing to it to see to it that it's going to be resuscitated and living. I can't imagine

that kind of world, but apparently a minority in the Senate can't imagine that kind of world. I want to see if it's a majority and minority in the House. I hope the speaker has the courage to put this up for a vote. Let people, yes, sir. know, do you think that's appropriate? Well, I would look at it and I would advise and warn the American public that if you can do this to the innocence of a child, they will do it at the other end of the life spectrum. So if you think this is not binding to you as an aged American, it actually implies that you're another victim of the circumstance.

So remember, you know, on Medicare for All, if you're a burden to the system, in this scenario, you're easily eliminated. Congressman Gosar, stay with you for a moment. We have a question from Merna Lieberman, also of Prescott, Arizona. She says, I believe Dr. Gosar is the lone voice in Arizona for the need to get a border wall in place. Does Dr. Gosar believe that is going to happen? Well, there's, remember, the president has about $4.5 billion at his disposal even before the emergency fund. So he's actually going to be building that as he promised.

It's sad, though, that so many people don't understand the emergency. that's on our southern border. The affluence that you're seeing the different diseases coming in, measles, mumps, bacteria resistance, tuberculosis, typhoid. This is an emergency coming in here. I mean, and you look at the sheer numbers coming across now that we're now being reported. This is an emergency of umpteenth degree,

so you either address it as individuals in leadership or you become victims of it. And I'm tired of those people from around the country, from New York and other states that don't believe that, you know, an infrastructure project in my backyard, our backyard is very important. So Andy Biggs, by the way, is also a big supporter. So I'm not by myself. Okay.

Thanks for that. Congressman Des Jolet, this is, this week the House is considering a measure HR1 for the People Act. It's titled, you've had some opposition even from the left, the ACLU coming out against it this week. What can you update our listeners on in terms of what the bill would do? and why conservatives need to be concerned? Well, basically, the Democrats have taken all the reasons they weren't successful in the last election

and tried to rig the game in their favor. So to me, this is more of a show vote on their part. It's dead on arrival in the Senate. But it's just part of a poor loser syndrome. And they're wanting to say that people in this country shouldn't have to show an ID to vote, which I think is ridiculous. I mean, almost everyone I know has to have an ID to do almost anything. and that's one of the most fundamental important things we do is vote and have the vote be reliable. So they're basically trying to loosen the restrictions and let people who are not eligible to vote

to try to tilt the advantage to their favor. So I think that the bill is a desperate attempt on their part to try to rig the game. As we wrap up our session today, I want to ask each of you from your own experience as a doctor to share with our listeners, what it was about that experience that perhaps motivated you to come to Congress here, and what message you'd like to leave with them in closing as we think about this issue of health care. Congressman Harris, you begin. Sure, this is simple. When I was trained almost 40 years ago, the bottom line is the relationship between the patient

and her doctor was the most important. That was it. Fast forward to now. You got an insurance company in the room. You got a government bureaucrat in the room. you have a pharmacy benefits manager in the room, you've got all these outside parties that are now involved in that relationship.

We have got to come full cycle and restore it to the primacy of a patient and her doctor. That's it. Thank you. Congressman Deja Lette. And, you know, there were a lot of doctors that came in in our class. I think there were six of us,

and we probably all pretty much agreed different specialties, but in my case with primary care, that relationship was paramount. When somebody came in, you know, they didn't want to just talk about what was wrong with him. They wanted to talk about football or hunting or their children's sports.

And you had time to do that in the good old days. You had time to actually be a doctor, get to know them. And in that conversation, you tend to elicit more information because the history is so important when treating patients. Well, with the government intervention, you know, that's getting pushed aside, even with the invent of medical records, which maybe made things more efficient, but it made them more impersonal. And anybody who had a doctor pre-electronic record knows that the doctor spent time examining you, talking to you, and not just tapping on their keyboard, inputting data to satisfy Big Brother. And so, you know, I think that when my patient started complaining about the government,

about health care and all the problems instead of, you know, the common things they talked about, I knew that there was a problem in our government, and I felt compelled to try to do something about it. I think the biggest key was, is that people wanted individualized health care. It was personalized to their needs. They may, what I may want is different than what Andy may want. And the physician always tried to tailor that. But when the government got involved, that went away. And so what I think is magical about the doctor's caucus is that in order to solve a problem,

we had to ask the patient, what hurts, how can we help you? So a lot of suggestions that we've brought forward to today and continue to bring forward have come from Main Street, from you the patient. And we're trying to empower you to get back your health care, making everybody accountable, make you centered and focused. And when the market competes on you, making sure you're satisfied with the decisions you make, we all win. I'd like to thank those congressmen for sharing their unique perspective on the issue.

Michaela, we've been hearing a lot from our listeners about Medicare for All and some of the threats to government health care. So it's nice to take a step back and hear about some of the solutions. You can find a full transcript of the conversation at DailySignal.com if you'd like to read it. Now stand by for our letters to the editor, which are coming up next. What the heck is trickle down economics? Does the military really need a space force? What is the meaning of American exceptionalism? I'm Michelle Cordero.

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Thanks for sending us your letters to the editor. Each Monday, we feature our favorites on this show and in our Morning Bell email newsletter. Michaela, who's up first? John Pipes writes, Dear Daily Signal, I am white and will never be able to truly understand what it is like to be black. No more than a black person can understand what it is like to be white. That being said, I will never understand why blacks in America vote for Democrats. The Democratic Party was the party that backed slavery. Abraham Lincoln was a Republican.

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Those people support racist ideologies in the murder of babies. What are people in Virginia thinking? Before you vote, you should investigate the candidates and stop succumbing to peer pressure and liberal talking points. Your letter could be featured on next week's show. Send an email to Letters at DailySignal.com or leave a voicemail message at 202-608-6205. Are you looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues? Sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda. Each Tuesday in the Agenda, you will learn what issues Heritage Scholars on Capitol Hill are working on,

what position conservatives are taking, and links to our in-depth research. The agenda also provides information on important events happening here at Heritage that you can watch online, as well as media interviews from our experts. Sign up for the agenda on heritage.org today. For the good news portion of this podcast, Michaela has a heartwarming story to share with us. I show do. Thanks, Rob. In 2017, Zachariah Cartlidge ran with firefighters and police officers during the Tunnel to Towers 5K in Orlando, Florida. Zachariah was inspired by the men who ran with him in their full gear.

Now, 10-year-old Zachariah has made the decision to run one mile for each officer who died while on duty during 2018 and 21st. 2019. I just really wanted to honor police officers because they do so much for us in the community. And the hate that they're giving is just really unacceptable because they do so much for us. And when I hear an officer pass away, it just breaks my heart. Along with planning to run hundreds of miles this year, Zachariah has asked for people to prayerfully consider donating to his cause. His original goal was to raise $100 for each fallen officer in 2018 for a total of $15,000. He's also exceeded expectations with over $31,000, which is more than double his goal.

These donations will go toward the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which was founded by the Siller family. The foundation was created following the death of New York City firefighter Stephen Siller. Siller lost his life in the Tunnel to the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. You can follow Zachariah as he honors fallen officers on his Facebook page named Running for heroes. I don't know lots of people that can take a bullet for anybody they don't know in the community and it's just an amazing thing. So I really wanted to honor them. Thanks for sharing that story, Michaela. Inspiring as always, we'll be sure to leave a link in the show notes so people can follow up and make a donation if they'd like. For sure. We're going to leave it there for today. The Daily Signal podcast

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