WASHINGTON – Congressman Leonard Lance (NJ-07) today issued the following statement following House-passage of bipartisan legislation to repeal the President’s Affordable Care Act:

“Our current health care insurance system is badly broken, but the President's Affordable Care Act will only make it worse.  It will lead to fewer jobs, more debt, higher taxes and reduced access to higher quality care.

“The law's onerous burdens and taxes will stifle small businesses already reluctant to hire because of uncertainty.  In New Jersey the law's taxes on medical devices and its mandates on employers and individuals will cost jobs and hurt our economy at a time when we can least afford it.

“I am deeply concerned that the health care law does not even deal with our primary problem – health care affordability.

“There is a better way: Bolstering health savings accounts, capping medical malpractice judgments, allowing insurance companies to sell policies across state lines, permitting small businesses to pool together to purchase coverage for their employees and creating insurance pools for sick people who cannot buy insurance on their own.

“Taken together, these free-market, common-sense, patient-focused measures would reduce health care costs as well as the deficit.  This would be done without higher taxes, red tape and government mandates at the heart of the Affordable Care Act.”

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