Issue Position: Health Care

Issue Position

We should be proud of the excellent care that doctors and nurses provide in Western Pennsylvania and throughout America. However, in order to address the rising cost of health care and the lack of access to health insurance coverage, we need health care reform.

Unfortunately, President Obama's unaffordable health care law has proven to be nothing more than a string of empty or broken promises. We have seen people lose their health care plans, premiums rise, workers having their hours cut, new job-killing taxes on health care businesses and innovators, and an expansion of taxpayer-funded abortion. On top of its trillion-dollar tax hike, President Obama's health care law places government bureaucrats between patients and their doctors.

The law is simply unworkable. President Obama has admitted as much by issuing ten delays, dozens of special exemptions, and signing seven pieces of legislation repealing various aspects of the law.

It is important that we repeal the President's health care law and find common-sense bipartisan solutions that reduce costs and expand access.

One such health care reform alternative is The American Health Care Reform Act. This proposal would lower health care costs by allowing Americans to purchase coverage across State lines and by enabling small businesses to pool together to increase their buying power. It would allow families and individuals to deduct health care costs and expand the amount of pre-tax dollars they can deposit into portable health savings accounts. This is a significant difference -- under the President's law, you get a tax penalty if you don't buy insurance; under this new proposal, you get a tax break if you buy insurance.

Importantly, this legislation also provides significant funding for State-based high risk pools, a place where individuals with preexisting conditions can obtain health insurance coverage when doing so would have otherwise been unaffordable.

I am committed to working with anyone willing to identify and enact solutions that empower patients and doctors to make health care decisions, not unelected bureaucrats in Washington.

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