Accomplishments: Making Health Care Affordable
Statement
Accomplishments: Making Health Care Affordable
Health care needs to be more affordable and more accessible. We have the best quality health care in the world, but too often it is too expensive for hard-working Americans to afford. Although so-called universal health care would be disastrous for this country by creating longer wait lines, more bureaucratic hurdles and worsen quality of care, we clearly need to reform the current health care system so that it works better for families when they need it. Less talk, more action.
Member of the Speaker's Prescription Drug Action Team
◊ Created the highly successful Medicare prescription drug benefit for Florida's seniors
◊ Since the implementation of Part D in 2006, market forces have lowered drug prices, by empowering doctors and patients, not bureaucrats and insurance companies.
◊ According to CMS actuaries, Part D is nearly $250 billion lower than its initial estimate in 2003.
Cosponsored the SCHIP Extension Act to extend SCHIP through FY2008 and the first six months of FY2009
Cosponsored the Small Business Health Fairness Act to create association health plans (AHPs) to help small businesses provide affordable quality health care plans to employees.
Cosponsored the Children's Health Insurance Promotion Act to conduct innovative outreach and enrollment efforts that are designed to increase the enrollment and participation of eligible children under SCHIP
Cosponsored the Alternative Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapies Enhancement Act to develop stem cells that are capable of producing all of the body's cell types to potentially treat diseases and other health conditions without destroying human embryos.
Cosponsored the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act to increase, over five cost reporting periods, the Medicare caps on the total number of full-time equivalent residents in the field of allopathic or osteopathic medicine for states with a shortage of residents
Cosponsored the Healthy Hospitals Act to require public reporting of health care-associated infections data by hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers.
Cosponsored the Group Health Plan Prosthetics Parity Act to cover prosthetics for 1.8 million Americans without limbs including children and Veterans.
Cosponsored the Keep Our Promise to America's Military Retirees Act to reimburse Veterans for pharmacy benefits received from a pharmacy that is not a TRICARE (Department of Defense managed health care plan) network pharmacy.
Cosponsored the Legal Immigrant Children's Health Improvement Act to grant states the option of covering certain categories of
eligible pregnant women and child resident immigrants, including targeted low-income children, under the Medicaid and SCHIP programs.
Cosponsored the Assisting Doctors to Obtain Proficient and Transmissible Health Information Technology (ADOPT HIT) Act
to allow medical care providers to deduct up to $250,000 of the cost of health care information technology used primarily for the electronic creation, maintenance, and exchange of medical care information.
Cosponsored the Early Treatment for HIV Act to give states the option of providing Medicaid coverage for certain low-income HIV-infected individuals.
Cosponsored the Medicare Patient Access to Physical Therapists Act to authorize qualified physical therapists to provide services for Medicare beneficiaries without the requirement of a physician referral.
Cosponsored the Health Insurance for Life Act to remove all limitations on Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) continuation coverage that establish a period by which such coverage must end, and instead provides no deadline for discontinuing such coverage.
Cosponsored the Financial Security Accounts for Individuals with Disabilities Act to establish tax-exempt financial security accounts for individuals with disabilities to pay certain expenses of such individuals, including expenses for education, medical care, and employment training.
Cosponsored the Health Care Choice Act to provide that the laws of the state designated by a health insurance issuer shall apply to individual health insurance coverage offered by that issuer in the primary state and in any other state
Cosponsored H.R. 1459 to improve Medicare beneficiary access by revising the inpatient rehabilitation facility classification criterion used for a hospital or hospital unit.
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