Issue Position: Health Care

Issue Position

Personal health care decisions should be made by patients, families, and their doctors, not politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. The 11lth Congress passed a health care "reform" law that cost the taxpayers $2.6 trillion dollars and will add $701 trillion to the deficit in the first ten years. This law imposes $569.2 billion in tax increases for families, and job killing mandates for small businesses. This is not what the people of South Texas need to get the economy back on track.

The health care reforms of 2010 impose an unconstitutional, federal mandate that forces Americans to inform the IRS of their health care choices. When health care reform is fully implemented, the IRS can fine taxpayers thousands of dollars for not purchasing bureaucrat-approved health insurance. Texas has joined more than half the states in a lawsuit to challenge this unconstitutional mandate.

I believe we need to make high quality coverage affordable for everyone. True health care reform should focus on bringing down costs by making insurance tax deductible, portable, and available across state lines. We can develop a solution to help the 15% of Americans without health insurance and also control premium hikes that 85% of Americans endure. Small businesses should have the power to pool together and offer health insurance to their employees at lower prices, just as larger corporations do.

The health care laws of 2010 will force businesses with more than fifty employees to provide health care insurance to their employees. Small businesses that cannot afford to offer health care coverage will be forced to pay a $2,000 penalty per employee. The National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), the nation's largest small business association, found that an employer mandate alone could lead to the elimination of 1.6 million jobs between 2009 and 2014, with 66 percent of those coming from small businesses.

Moving Forward to Repeal and Replace:
I have been a fierce opponent of the this health care law and I was proud to cast a very strong "YES" vote for H.R. 2, the Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.

Repealing and replacing this health care law will be politically difficult to pass in the U.S. Senate. Senate Democrats have already defeated an attempt by House and Senate Republicans to repeal these harmful health care laws. As such Congressional Republicans will have to take a multi-track approach to repealing and replacing the health care law.

The first way to achieve this is by starving the health care law of federal funds through the appropriations process. I am an original cosponsor of H.R. 127, which de-authorizes the appropriation of funds to carry out the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.

The second track will be to repeal specific provisions of the health care law. The House passed H.R. 4, the Small Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act of 2011, which repealed the expanded 1099 reporting mandate on small businesses. I am also an original cosponsor of H.R. 21, the Reclaiming Individual Liberty Act, which repeals the federal mandate that all individuals purchase health care insurance.

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