Political Quotes

“Republicans believe that we can have health reform, and we should, without a government takeover of one-sixth of our Nation's economy. Republicans introduced over 70 bills that offer free market solutions to health care reform, and one of those is H.R. 3400. H.R. 3400, a bill I have cosponsored, is the Empowering Patients First Act. It does three things. It gives access to coverage for all Americans. It does this in large part by extending the tax deduction, which right now unfairly only goes to corporate employees, and says every American can have this tax deduction. That lets you have your insurance and not be dependent on your job to provide it for you. That way you can take it with you. It becomes portable. You have less to fear from preexisting conditions. Coverage will be truly owned by the patient under H.R. 3400. The individual market is expanded. Things like pooling mechanisms, where national associations can form together, use national economies of scale to form membership plans and accounts to pool across State lines. Right now that is not allowed under law. And reining in out-of-control costs. We can do this for instance, through reforming the medical liability system. The bills in front of us that we may vote on tomorrow do nothing about medical tort reform. That's a huge driver of defensive medicine and needless costs in our health care system.”