Issue Position: Health

Issue Position

Two years ago, the president signed into law his signature health care bill, which will include the government takeover of one-sixth of the U.S. economy. It is the largest expansion of the federal government in decades, and a majority of the American people want it stopped.

To that end, I have worked to repeal and defund this disastrous law before its full implementation, which will cost taxpayers more than a trillion dollars, take away $500 billion from Medicare, and force millions of people to lose their current health care coverage, putting them on government-run programs instead.

The House Republican majority has voted 29 times so far to repeal and defund, and dismantle President Obama's health care law. Here's an overview of these efforts:

REPEALING THE LAW: One of the first actions taken by the House in 2011 was to adopt H.R. 2, a bill repealing the health care law in its entirety.

DEFUNDING THE LAW: The jobs-focused budgets passed by the House this year (H.Con.Res. 112) and last (H.Con.Res. 34) fully repeal and defund the government takeover of health care. Several amendments to H.R. 1 would prohibit funding from being used to implement or enforce provisions of the law.

REPEALING THE SMALL BUSINESS PAPERWORK MANDATE: The House passed and the president signed H.R. 4, Pledge to America legislation that repealed the health care law's job-crushing paperwork mandate.

FREEZING THE IRS BUDGET: Another provision in the spending cut agreement prevented the IRS from hiring 16,500 new agents to help impose the health care law's tax hikes and mandates.

ELIMINATING SLUSH FUNDS: Several ObamaCare slush funds were eliminated in last year's spending cut agreement signed by President Obama. The House approved H.R. 1213 and H.R. 1214 to repeal other slush funds and save taxpayers billions of dollars. And the House recently cut an ObamaCare slush fund to pay for a bill that stops student loan rates from doubling.

SCRAPPING THE RATIONING BOARD: The House passed legislation (H.R. 5) repealing the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), a panel of 15 unelected and unaccountable government bureaucrats tasked with rationing care for America's seniors.

EXPOSING TRUE COST OF THE LAW: The House voted to repeal the CLASS Act (H.R. 1173) whose phantom "savings" were "crucial to garnering support for passage" of Obamacare, according to a bicameral Congressional investigation.

BACKING STATES & SMALL BUSINESSES: Speaker John Boehner filed a brief in federal court backing the effort by states and small businesses challenging the constitutionality of the law.

HOLDING THE ADMINISTRATION ACCOUNTABLE: House committees held roughly three dozen hearings in 2011 examining the impact of ObamaCare on job growth, the costs imposed on families and small businesses, the administration's use of waivers to exempt select groups from the law's mandates, the constitutionality of the law, and much more.

The president's health care law makes it harder for small businesses to hire new workers, jeopardizes seniors' access to care, and adds to the debt that threatens job growth. It needs to go.

The majority of Americans do not like the president's health care law and want to see it overturned. I will continue to do my part to right the wrong that is Obamacare and replace it with commonsense, cost-effective solutions that will improve access to health care, protect consumer choice, and preserve the doctor-patient relationship by keeping government out of the examining room.

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