Issue Position: Health Care

Issue Position

Health Care Reform

Whether hosting a roundtable discussion with members of the business community, touring a local manufacturing company, or visiting with constituents, John Kline is continually reminded of Minnesotans' concerns about the president's health care law. Patients, doctors, health care providers, employers, and workers share one common tenet when it comes to "ObamaCare": It weakens health care for American families.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was a colossal 2,700-page bill rushed through Congress without much effort to engage the American people in the process. Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi embraced this scheme, infamously stating, "We have to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it." Currently, it is clear the president's law does nothing to control costs or expand coverage. And many Americans have had enough.

Despite promises that the health care law would lower costs, premiums are rising for families nationwide.

As Chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, he is on the front lines of the critical ObamaCare debate. He has been an outspoken critic of the law since day one, and he remains concerned that, particularly once the administration fully implements the law's burdensome rules and regulations, it will unfairly penalize everyone from workers and employers to students, parents, and seniors.

Whether through full repeal or an incremental approach, John Kline remains committed to unraveling this flawed law that is having a devastating effect on our economy and straining family budgets in Minnesota and nationwide. Most importantly, he will continue to pursue health care reform in a way that makes sense, supporting proposals that will actually lower health care costs without budgetary gimmicks, and protect the best interests individuals, families, and small businesses. Minnesotans, and all Americans, deserve better than ObamaCare's broken promises.

Solutions:

John Kline is committed to achieving commonsense health care reform without raising taxes, killing jobs, or putting bureaucrats between Americans and their doctors. Some of the solutions Kline continues to support are:

Enacting Medical Liability Reform. Skyrocketing medical liability insurance rates have distorted the practice of medicine, routinely forcing doctors to order costly and often unnecessary tests to protect themselves from lawsuits, often referred to as "defensive medicine. We will enact common-sense medical liability reforms to lower costs, rein in junk lawsuits and curb defensive medicine.

Purchasing Health Insurance across state Lines Americans residing in a state with expensive health insurance plans are locked into those plans and do not currently have an opportunity to choose a lower cost option that best meets their needs. We will allow individuals to buy health care coverage outside of the state in which they live.

Expanding Health Savings Accounts. Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) are popular savings accounts that provide cost-effective health insurance to those who might otherwise go uninsured. We will improve HSAs by making it easier for patients with high-deductible health plans to use them to obtain access to quality care. We will repeal the new health care law, which prevents the use of these savings accounts to purchase over-the-counter medicine.

Strengthening the Doctor-Patient Relationship. We will repeal President Obama's government takeover of health care and replace it with commonsense reforms focused on strengthening the doctor patient relationship.

Ensuring Access for Patients with Pre-Existing Conditions. Health care should be accessible for all, regardless of pre-existing conditions or past illnesses. We will expand state high-risk pools, reinsurance programs and reduce the cost of coverage. We will make it illegal for an insurance company to deny coverage to someone with prior coverage on the basis of a pre-existing condition, eliminate annual and lifetime spending caps, and prevent insurers from dropping your coverage just because you get sick. We will incentivize states to develop innovative programs that lower premiums and reduce the number of uninsured Americans.

Coverage for dependents. A majority of Americans -- and members of Congress -- acknowledge dependents should be able to remain on their parents' insurance policies until the age of 25 or 26.

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