Issue Position: Health Care

Issue Position

"I believe every American should have access to affordable health insurance, and no government bureaucrat should stand between you and your doctor. That's why I voted against the President's health care law and later to repeal it." -- Congressman Charlie Dent

The law that President Obama pushed through Congress will:

*Increase health care costs;


*Balloon our national debt;


*Cut over 700 BILLION dollars from Medicare (according to the Congressional Budget Office);


*Raise taxes by nearly 700 BILLION dollars;


*Result in the loss of over 800,000 jobs (according to the Congressional Budget Office);


*Stifle medical innovation;


*Insert the IRS and government bureaucrats into you and your family's health care.


We can do better.

I have supported addressing the problem of health care access with commonsense proposals that fix the actual problem -- not a "one-size fits all" Big Government approach.

In 2009, a group of my colleagues and I put forward the Medical Rights and Reform Agenda. This legislative initiative was designed to expand access, ensure affordability, lower costs, improve quality and foster innovation. This plan included elements like:

*Giving states, small businesses and other groups more purchasing power to band together and offer health insurance at lower costs through small business health plans, interstate compacts and catastrophic coverage plans;



*Providing families with more options by expanding consumer-driven coverage options such as Health Savings Accounts and Flexible Spending Accounts;



*Making sure those with pre-existing conditions would be covered through building on state-run high risk pools and/or reinsurance models.



We also dealt with the important subject of medical malpractice reform. A staggering amount of money is spent every year on treatments and tests designed more to protect against lawsuits than to protect the health of the patient. The health care law now in effect is over a 2,000 pages long, but you won't find any substantive provisions to curb law suit abuse or enact medical malpractice reform.

Please know that I support protecting those with pre-existing conditions and offering greater flexibility regarding covering eligible dependents. However, the goal of increasing access to quality health care could have been met with rational, market-driven reforms that would actually drive down health care costs. It didn't require the government assuming control of one sixth of the American economy, increasing health care costs, imposing 20 new and higher taxes, destroying 800,000 jobs and stifling medical innovation.

I will continue working to REPEAL the health care law before it can irrevocably damage our economy and our high-quality health care system, and will work to REPLACE it with commonsense reforms designed to increase access, lower costs and maintain quality of care.

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