Issue Position: Health Care

Issue Position

In 2010, I joined a majority of Americans in strongly opposing the passage of H.R. 3200, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as ObamaCare. This trillion dollar government takeover of 1/6 of our economy, our health care system, was a dramatic overreach of congressional authority that created more unfunded mandates and bureaucratic red tape than any single piece of legislation I have seen in my lifetime. It has been vehemently opposed by the American people since it was first proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats in 2009 and it sparked the Tea Party revolution that saw Democrats suffer huge losses across the country on Election Night 2010.

During the 112th Congress, I have worked tirelessly to repeal this harmful law and replace it with real health care reforms that will lower health care costs, while maintaining scientific innovation and without putting government bureaucrats between patients and their doctors.

In addition, since its passage, 32 states have filed lawsuits against the law. Finally, the lawsuit has reached the Supreme Court. Arguments were held at the end of March 2012 and a decision is expected sometime in June 2012. The backbone of the argument is that the unfunded mandates requiring Americans to purchase health insurance are unconstitutional. I have joined many of my colleauges in the House and the Senate in filing an amicus brief, also referred to as a friend of the court brief, urging the Supreme Court to overturn this harmful legislation.

We do have problems within our health care system. The wealthy can afford top notch care and the poor are, more often than not, subsidized with federal and state health care programs like Medicaid. It is those in the middle who struggle the most with health care costs. In addition, we need to make changes to how insurance companies determine coverage costs and encourage hospitals to have more transparency for procedural costs. However, when your car gets a flat tire, you don't replace the whole car - you just change the tire. Rather than rolling up their sleeves and taking the time to pass targeted legislation to address the problems within our health care system, Congressional Democrats and the White House just threw the whole system out and replaced it with their government mandates.

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