Healthcare

America has the best-trained nurses and doctors in the world. We have the best-equipped, highest tech hospitals in the world. How can it be that our system is ranked 37th by the World Health Organization? Clearly we have a problem delivering effective health care to the people that need it most in this country.

Costs keep rising and we are not seeing any improvement when it comes to keeping people healthy. This suggests a model for delivering care that is unsustainable. We will never have enough money to pay for the increasing numbers of the chronically ill and a rapidly aging population of baby boomers.

We need to radically rethink the way we deliver health care in America. Rather than focusing on treating sickness we need to start building a system based on promoting wellness and prevention. 

Will Obamacare help in this regard? Absolutely not! It just adds to the enormous costs we all have to bare.  Before Obamacare, 90% of American’s had health insurance and 10% did not. The solution to the problem would have been to provide insurance to the 10% that did not have it, it was not to have the government take over the entire healthcare industry. 

Presently we have 6 million and more that have lost their coverage to help 3 million get coverage. Once the employer mandate exemption expires, tens of millions will lose their coverage and their doctors. It will be more expensive, less accessible, and lower quality. Toby Cosgrove, CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, says that three quarters of all Obamacare enrollees will have a premium increase. 

If the law was truly beneficial why did the President grant Congress the ability to exempt themselves, their staffs, and their families from the law? Why did he lie to Americans when he said we could keep our doctor and our existing plan if we liked it, knowing it wasn’t true? Why did he grant over 1,600 exemptions to his favored political allies, and why is he constantly changing the law without Congressional consent? 

The answer: it was never about providing coverage to the 10% that didn’t have it; it was about control and power over the entire healthcare industry. Why else would you need over 22,000 pages of rules and regulations?

Solutions for all Americans 

Obamacare must be repealed because it is suffocating business, health care and the economy. If however, it is not, we must reform it. The government does not have a good track record when it comes to healthcare; just look at the problems with Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veteran’s hospital. My goal is to provide accessibility and affordability to those who did not have it before the law was passed, and allow those who did to keep their existing doctor and plan.  

I believe there has to be a fundamental change to achieve a better partnership between the healthcare system and the individual. We need a system that is focused on preventing a disease by treating your body responsibly. In the long term it is less costly to prevent a disease, and true prevention is not early detection. Although what we provide now under preventive healthcare is valuable (mammograms, cholesterol screening, etc.), it is not prevention. What we need is early preventive measures that will support longterm health (not smoking, not becoming obese etc.) and will help Americans avoid the behaviors that lead to illness and disease. 

As your Congressman, I will not exempt myself from Obamacare. I will accept for my staff and myself the worst healthcare plan that is forced on America.