On Thursday, January 19, Congressman Jim Renacci joined House Republicans in voting to cut $2.6 trillion in new spending and to reduce deficits by $700 billion by repealing the Democrats’ job-crushing health care bill.

Repeal serves two purposes. First, it is critical to getting our economy on a path toward recovery and job creation. ObamaCare’s new taxes, fees and regulations increase the uncertainty among employers, and businesses are being forced to consider employee layoffs, cutting benefits, or both.

Second, repeal reopens the dialogue on finding ways to truly deal with healthcare costs. The new law primarily focuses on expanding coverage, but the cost does not address the ever-rising cost of care. In many cases, the law is actually responsible for increases. Employers are already experiencing significant premium hikes related, in part, to ObamaCare’s new mandates.  In Medina County, one employer reported seeing its health insurance premiums increase by over 60%, forcing the business to consider layoffs in order to afford the higher health care overhead costs.

It is important to note that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report stating that the repeal would increase the federal deficit by $230 billion is inaccurate. The analysis failed to count $115 billion in implementation costs, double counted $500 billion in payroll taxes revenues and calculated 10 years of revenue but only 6 years of expenses.

Congressman Renacci supports the following Republican solutions that will make health care and health insurance more affordable and improve the health care system:

• Allow individuals to buy health insurance across state lines.When insurance companies are forced to compete for business nationwide, both competition and choice increases. Giving people the choice to buy plans without unnecessary state mandates will also lower their premiums.
• Curb frivolous lawsuits through medical malpractice reform  to lower the cost of malpractice premiums and reduce overhead costs on hospitals. It will also help eliminate the need for the practice of defensive medicine, which will reduce health care costs by as much as $200 billion a year.
• Permanently end taxpayer funding of abortionand subsidies for insurance policies that cover abortion.
• Improve and expand high-risk poolsso people with pre-existing conditions can get access to affordable health insurance.
• Encourage small business health plans to allow small businesses to pool together through Association Health Plans (AHPs) to leverage lower cost health insurance on behalf of their employees.
• Remove 1099 reporting requirementswhich are extremely time consuming and burdensome for small businesses, particularly during a time when they need to focus on creating jobs, not filing paperwork.
• Create new HSA incentivesso people can keep more of their hard-earned money and play a greater role in their health care decisions.

Additionally, Congressman Renacci supports maintaining the following elements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA):

• Eliminate lifetime or annual spending capson essential benefits
• Prevent insurers from unjustly cancelling a policy (also known as rescission) simply because the enrollee made an error on their application form
• Increase wellness incentivesStarting in 2014, employers will be allowed to give a premium discount or rewards of  30% to 50% of the cost of coverage for employees who successfully complete wellness programs