Bruce Westerman: “I am grateful that we are finally having a discussion on the important issue of healthcare. More than a decade of…”

“I am grateful that we are finally having a discussion on the important issue of healthcare. More than a decade of healthcare conflict has squandered trillions of dollars, driven up our national debt, done relatively little to improve healthcare, and destroyed the public's confidence in either party's ability to fix the system. We can do better, yet we don't. As an engineer, I learned that the first step to solving a problem is identifying and defining the problem. Our problem is not that we lack creative solutions to the issues that plague the healthcare system. Our problem is not that the electorate doesn't care about healthcare. They do. The need for healthcare is nonpartisan. There are no Republican, Democrat, or Independent strains of cancer, forms of dementia, types of diabetes, or hospitals that check your political party registration when you arrive at the emergency room. Our primary problem with fixing healthcare for America is that we have pushed and continue to push partisan solutions for a nonpartisan issue. Have we in both parties not learned that this will not work? We both paid the price for our failures on healthcare, but the folks who have lost the most are our constituents, the American citizens that sent us here. Let's be honest, face our past, learn from it, and craft a better healthcare future. The record is clear. In 2008, the Democratic Party controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House.…”