Washington, D.C. – U.S. Representative Charles W. Boustany, Jr., (R-Southwest Louisiana), today said most Americans agree on solutions to lower health costs, but Democrats’ current proposals focus on where we disagree.

“Most Democrats, Independents and Republicans do agree on 80 percent of the solutions to bring down health care costs, but these bills focus where we disagree,” said Boustany.  “Rather, we should scrap these bills, like the American people want us to, and focus on bringing down health costs.  As a doctor, I know people want to buy insurance across state lines, pool together to get a better price and limit frivolous lawsuits - all of these will lower costs, and they can be done in a simple way.  Unfortunately, Democrats’ 2,000+ page bills complicate health care instead of lowering costs when families struggle to make ends meet.”

Boustany participated in the President’s health care summit, as one of three doctors and the only member of the Louisiana delegation.  During the summit, Boustany outlined Republican solutions to lower health care costs by creating more competition and simplifying health insurance.  Click play to watch Rep. Boustany at today’s summit.

A transcript of his remarks are below:

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: So what I do is since I want to make sure that Mitch doesn't give me a time clock tally again, let me first go to Mitch and I don't know who wants to make the presentation with respect to insurance reform.

REP. JOHN BOEHNER: Mr. President, I would like to yield to Dr. Boustany to continue this conversation about insurance reform.

REP. CHARLES BOUSTANY: Thank you, Mr. Boehner and thank you, Mr. President. I come at this as a physician, cardiovascular surgeon with over 20 years of practice doing open heart surgery, dealing with patients who have come to me with very, very challenging cases and very difficult times in their lives. Along with my colleagues, Dr. Coburn and Dr. Barrasso, we bring a wealth of experience in dealing with insurance companies and all these every day problems that so many American families face.

We all agree, we all agree that we need insurance reform. There's no question about it. The question is, how do we do it. Now, we have all been through a long year. Town hall meetings, telephone calls, e-mails, it goes on and on. And one thing that has become very clear; the American people have spoken out very loudly and very clearly. They want us to take a step back and go step by step with a common sense plan that really brings the costs down for American families and small business owners. They want insurance companies to treat them just like they treat big labor unions and large companies. It's been a resounding message we have heard over and over.

So how can we achieve all this? Well, we've talked about some of it. I think one of the things we ought to really look at is how do you simplify, streamline and standardize all the paperwork that's involved because I can tell you as a doctor, and my two colleagues who are physicians, will know that it takes you away from patient care. It interferes with the doctor/patient relationship. It runs up costs in medical practices and it's a real issue. So I believe -- I think we can all agree on that. We need to address that issue.

A second area is how do you really promote choice and competition? We have all talked about it and I think we've had a lot of discussion already on those issues. We put forth a plan earlier in the year during the debate that actually, the congressional budget office showed, that it brings down the cost of premiums up to about 10% and actually for individuals seeking, and families seeking insurance in the individual market, those cost savings could be even higher. As opposed to the bill we have here, where we've had some discussion already, and Mr. Camp has already outlined as well as Mr. Kyl, that this bill would actually raise premium costs.

We have talked about small business health plans. Again, I ran a small business. It was a medical practice. When I wanted insurance, when those premiums were going up in double digits every year, I would call an insurance agent. They would come in and we had very limited choice; very limited. And the costs kept going up. Small business health plans is one way to really deal with this and allow for pooling. And where our big disagreement is, frankly, it's with how you do it. And if you create a plan with exchanges that are overly restrictive, it really, it defeats the purpose.

I believe we can have faith in the American public to figure out if it's transparent enough - what's their best deal. What's the best deal for a small business owner or family in this sort of arrangement. The same goes for purchasing insurance across state lines. I think - I'm glad to hear our democratic colleagues agree that this is an approach that needs to be taken to promote choice and competition. But again, we feel that this bill restricts those options too much. And we think we can do it in a responsible way. I believe we probably could come together on this but I think the existing proposals restrict it far too much.

Health savings accounts. These are very, very popular among small business owners and families and I think the one impediment today is the inability to save enough in these. I think there are ways that we could promote these health savings accounts and promote real savings that will actually make a difference. It won't solve all the problems, but it's an important insurance reform that I think small businesses will really, really jump on, if we could expand those savings opportunities.

The current bill, as has been stated, adds some restrictions and some additional tax provisions on these which make them less palatable. We all agree on prohibiting insurance companies from arbitrarily canceling insurance policies. That's a no-brainer. There is strong agreement on both sides of the aisle there.

Now, with regard to pre-existing conditions, this is an issue that is very difficult and many of us and our families may have been faced with. I can tell you I faced it when I closed my medical practice because I had a health condition, an arthritis condition. And I went to the same insurance carrier that covered my small medical practice for 14 years and got the big red “no, can't insure you or your family.” That's frankly unacceptable. Now, what we propose is using risk pools; expanding these risk pools and reinsurance. It's an affordable way to do it. It creates certainty for a family that's faced with this very difficult set of circumstances.
 
Certainty is important and our plan would not raise premium costs extravagantly. Whereas the proposal here would raise those costs and it doesn't really create the kind of certainty a family needs, because there are waiting lists. And that proposal is only temporary to something else that we don't know what it's going to be.

The other thing we do is we create a way for small business owners to actually shop and compare apples to apples. Transparency; this is critical. Our plan does this without creating the kinds of restrictions that we see with the exchange process and we agree that we have to eliminate annual lifetime caps so we have broad agreement there.

Again, I think it's clear the American people have rejected the bills that have gone through so far because they see increases in premiums for families. They see that it raises taxes significantly on families and raids Medicare to create a new entitlement. It doesn't really bring down the cost. This is really not the answer. What American families want is a common sense, step-by-step approach that will really lower the cost for families and small businesses.

OBAMA: All right.
 
BOUSTANY: I believe, I believe we have a duty to reform health care but we have an obligation to get it right.

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