Health Reform
Increasing the affordability of healthcare through common sense reforms is the best way to make sure more Americans will have access to quality healthcare.
I am working to secure, protect, and strengthen the U.S. healthcare system. Our healthcare system must be patient-centered. This means allowing individuals to choose the insurance coverage options that best suit their needs, and broadening the selection of plans to include insurance plans from across state lines. It also means encouraging the portability of health insurance – allowing employees to own their health care plan and take it with them between jobs – so that you can keep your healthcare even if you lose your job. Finally, it means ending insurance discrimination based on age, gender, or pre-existing conditions. Instead of a bureaucratic-run healthcare system that takes decisions out of the hands of patients, I want to empower individuals to take control of their own healthcare decisions.
Obamacare is the wrong prescription for what ails the American healthcare system. Obamacare is expanding the very federal bureaucracy that is already forcing itself between patients and doctors. It also reduces patient choice by mandating not only that you must purchase insurance, but also the levels of coverage that are acceptable. This is the opposite of a patient-centered approach.
Healthcare in a country as diverse as ours should not be delivered in a “one size fits all” fashion. Common sense solutions that harness the power of the free market and promote competition have been proven to successfully drive down costs and promote improved choices for consumers. America’s healthcare problems will be solved by private sector creativity, not by bureaucratic central planning.
Other reforms are urgently needed as well. I oppose the practice of “defensive medicine”, whereby unnecessary and expensive tests and procedures are ordered to avoid expensive litigation, raising the cost of healthcare with no tangible benefits to patients. Ending abusive lawsuits is an essential part of reducing these costs and ensuring that doctors are looking out for what’s best for each individual patient rather than worrying about protecting their own practices and livelihoods.
Ultimately, increasing the affordability of healthcare through common sense reforms is the best way to make sure more Americans will have access to quality healthcare. Imposing a mandate on all Americans to purchase health insurance neither increases affordability or healthcare quality; in fact, we are beginning to see that Obamacare is not working as intended, and I am fighting to make sure it is replaced sooner rather than later.