“Right now, Speaker Pelosi and her Democrats are busy trying to ram health reform legislation through the House of Representatives against the will of the American people. This bill will raise your taxes, create a massive new entitlement program and do little to address the problems in our current health system. The frightening reality for the American taxpayer and anyone who will need health care in the future is that the Democrats are hiding the true costs of these bills and doing so in ways that will be disastrous to our nation’s long-term fiscal health.

“Claims that the bill reduces deficits couldn’t be further from the truth.  This bill uses budgetary gimmickry to make the bill appear deficit neutral. For example, the bill uses huge cuts in Medicare payments to offset the cost of this new entitlement program. Everyone, including the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), recognizes that these cuts rarely go into effect.  For example, Congress has chosen to stop cuts to Medicare reimbursements for physicians for the past seven years straight.  The reason for this is irrefutable – if Congress did allow proposed cuts to providers such as hospitals, doctors, nursing homes and hospice care to occur, then Medicare providers would stop seeing Medicare patients, putting access to care in grave danger. 

“I strongly believe that there are a number of measures that all of us, regardless of party affiliation, support that will bring down costs and improve access to care for all Americans. These are not new ideas however – they are ideas that are critical to implementing real, affordable, and effective health reform. 

“First, we must pass effective medical malpractice reform. By passing meaningful liability reform, the legal system will continue to protect patients against medical negligence, but it would limit junk lawsuits by placing caps on noneconomic damages and limiting attorney fees and save billions of dollars in wasteful spending by stemming the practice of defensive medicine.

“We should immediately end the current practice of banning the purchase of insurance across state lines. Under the current system, the insurance market operates like 50 individual fiefdoms with each state in charge of insurance regulation and individuals limited to buying health insurance from local insurance providers. Allowing purchasing of insurance across state lines would increase competition in the insurance market as individuals would have more affordable health insurance options and end the monopolies that exist in many states.

“Bipartisan health reform should include provisions to allow small businesses to band together through associations to buy healthcare coverage, giving them the same leverage and buying power that large corporations and even labor unions already enjoy. Further, everyone recognizes that we need to do more as a country to focus on prevention and early intervention. And for those people with pre-existing conditions, we should pass a measure to prohibit insurers from denying coverage.

“These are just a few examples of reforms that Democrats, Republicans and Independents could support that would bring down healthcare costs for taxpayers and consumers and improve access to care. These are not new ideas—many of them already have support from both sides of the aisle. I am disappointed that President Obama and Speaker Pelosi have chosen to ignore this message.  Americans deserve REAL reform—not a partisan, gimmicky bill that will cost trillions of dollars and do little to improve care. We should be working together to pass health reform that will make healthcare more affordable and improve access to quality care for all Americans.”