Republicans Are Offering Better Solutions to Lower Health Care Costs

Republicans Are Offering Better Solutions to Lower Health Care Costs
John Boehner
Saturday, October 31, 2009

Time after time, Republicans have reached out to President Obama and congressional Democrats to work together on common-sense solutions to lower health care costs for families and small businesses. President Obama promised the American people a bipartisan process. Unfortunately, Democrats have chosen a partisan, go-it-alone approach. It’s yet another broken promise, and it defies the will of the American people.

Through the month of August, the American people let Members of Congress from both parties know that they didn’t want a government takeover of health care. But instead of listening to Americans’ concerns, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and House Democratic leaders ignored them and wrote a bill behind closed doors designed to appease the liberal special interests.

Next week, Speaker Pelosi will attempt to ram through her 1,990-page government takeover of health care through the House of Representatives. This bill will raise the cost of Americans’ health insurance premiums and add to our already skyrocketing debt; it will kill jobs with tax hikes and new mandates; and it will cut seniors’ Medicare benefits.

For the sake of struggling middle-class families, small businesses, and seniors, Republicans are going to do everything we can to fight this monstrosity. We will stand on principle in opposing this bill, and we will offer a better solution to lower costs for families and small businesses.

In the national Republican address today, I am outlining Republicans’ plan for common-sense health care reform our nation can afford, emphasizing four common-sense reforms that will lower health care costs and expand access to quality care without a government takeover of our nation’s health care system that kills jobs, raises taxes on small businesses, or cuts Medicare for seniors.

Here are four smart, fiscally-responsible reforms that we can implement today to lower costs and expand access to quality care:

· Number one: let individuals and families buy health insurance across state lines.

· Number two: allow individuals, small businesses, and trade associations to pool together and acquire health insurance at lower prices, the same way large corporations and labor unions do.

· Number three: give states the tools to create their own innovative reforms that lower health care costs.

· Number four: end junk lawsuits that contribute to higher health care costs by increasing the number of tests and procedures that physicians sometimes order not because they think it's good medicine, but because they are afraid of being sued.

You can learn more about these and all the health care initiatives Republicans have supported by visiting http://healthcare.gop.gov and you can watch the video of the address HERE. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DKDdVXsC2I.
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Democrats Worth Hearing
Cal Thomas
Thursday, October 29, 2009

Does anyone in Washington tell the truth? Why should Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid be believed when he promises states can "opt-out" of a public option on health care? This isn't like opting-out of sex education class. Individuals won't be able to avoid the consequences of national health care once the government puts the insurance companies out of business, because there will be no other choice than the government program.

With health insurance "reform," opting-out, is really opting-in for eventual single-payer national health insurance that will include rationing -- especially for seniors, who will be told by government what treatment they are allowed -- higher taxes, longer waits and substandard care.

Several Democrats have been honest about where this is headed. They deserve thanks from the public for exposing the lies their party leaders are telling us. Speaker Nancy Pelosi's cover-up now includes word games. She thinks the public option should be renamed "the consumer option." There will be no option for consumers when government undercuts insurance companies, which have fast become Democrats' Halloween ogres.

Don't take it from me. Consider Sen. Evan Bayh, Indiana Democrat: "If it was a public option that was just kind of a stalking horse for a government-run health care system, I don't think that would have a very good chance." Kudos to Sen. Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas Democrat, for saying, "For some in my caucus, when they talk about a public option, they're talking about another entitlement program and we can't afford that right now as a nation."

Imagine that! A Democrat saying we are spending too much as Congress prepares to raise the debt limit to $12 trillion. The deficit is currently at $1.6 trillion.

Sen. Kent Conrad, North Dakota Democrat, called the push for the public option "a wasted effort" because the votes aren't there. Sen. Byron Dorgan, also a North Dakota Democrat, agrees: "I've indicated I won't vote for a bill that's a government takeover of health insurance, or the health care system." And then there's Sen. Joe Lieberman, former Democrat and current Independent, who has vowed to join Republicans in a filibuster of any plan that contains a government option.

There is no secret what will fix the problems with health insurance, but liberal Democrats don't want to fix it, as much as they wish to control it and all of us.

The CATO Institute remains a primary resource for ideas that will work in reforming health insurance. It recommends four steps Congress could take and the public should demand. (1) give Medicare enrollees a voucher and let them choose any health plan on the market that fits their needs, not what the government dictates. Vouchers would be means-tested, would include Medicare spending and are, says CATO, the only way to protect seniors from rationing. (2) Congress should reform the tax treatment by allowing large health savings accounts. This would reduce the number of uninsured Americans, would free workers to buy secure health coverage from any source, and would effectively give workers a $9.7 trillion tax cut without increasing the deficit; (3) Congress should breakup state monopolies on insurance and clinician licensing. CATO estimates allowing people to buy insurance from other states could cover one-third of the uninsured without new taxes or government subsidies.

(4) Congress should reform Medicaid and the State Children's health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) the way it reformed it in 1996 when it block-granted the programs. This would help reduce the deficit and encourage states to target resources to those most in need.

These free market ideas and others like them are a rebuke to the lie by some liberal Democrats that Republicans and conservatives have presented no plan of their own for health insurance reform. They have, but those holding power don't want to hear them. That's because they have their own agenda. The only way they can be stopped is by a public outcry and uprising. Not only our health, but also our lives depend on stopping them.
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I'm so sick of hearing the media and Obama repeatedly saying in the media that the Republicans don't have any ideas and are the party of "no". It was the democrats who initially said no to any Republican ideas or contributions. Just trying to set the facts straight here.