Repealing Obama’s Health Care Law
Despite my strong opposition and the Republicans’ repeated efforts to defeat President Obama’s bill, it narrowly passed the House and the Senate in 2010 and became law.
I strongly oppose the health reform legislation and am supportive of Republican efforts of repeal and defund the law and have been supportive of states such as Idaho to overturn the bill through the legal process. While I accepted the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the individual mandate as a tax, I remain concerned with the precedent the decision sets for the future. It is difficult not to see it as an approval of the significant expansion of the power of the federal government into the everyday lives of citizens.
That said, I believe the best thing Congress can do now is repeal the bill in its entirety and start over by passing smaller bills that enjoy bipartisan support and focus on bringing down costs for American healthcare consumers.
Recognizing that full repeal of this legislation in Congress is an uphill battle, I support several individual reforms that all Americans – Democrats, Republicans and Independents – could support that would bring down healthcare costs for taxpayers and consumers and improve access to care. Some of these reforms I support are:
• Medical malpractice reform;
• Make the purchase of health insurance for individuals tax-exempt like it is for employer-sponsored insurance;
• Help association health plans create larger purchasing pools;
• Allow prescription drug re-importation;
• Allow purchase of health insurance across state lines.
These are not new ideas—many of them already have support on both sides of the aisle. I am disappointed that President Obama and Democratic leadership chose to ignore this message when they passed the health care bill. Americans deserve REAL market based reform—not a partisan, gimmicky bill that will cost trillions of dollars and do little to improve care.
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