Developing Better Solutions to Government-Run Health Care
Jun 1, 2009
Washington -
This is my latest column. I hope you find it informative.
As Congress moves into its summer work period, one of the most pressing issues we’ll take up is health care. To be clear: I fully support providing access to quality, affordable health care for everyone, and I will continue to advocate for common sense solutions that do this. I hope that Congress can work in a bipartisan manner to achieve this goal.
Quality health coverage must exist for every American, regardless of pre-existing health conditions. And every person who likes their current health plan should be able to keep it especially if they switch jobs. Families should not have to wonder if a plan offered by a new employer will meet their specific health needs. What’s more, health coverage should not just focus on making people better – we need to improve lives through effective prevention, wellness and disease management programs while at the same time developing new treatments and cures for life-threatening diseases.
It’s possible for us to achieve these goals without raising taxes, rationing care or letting government bureaucrats interfere in decisions that should be made by you and your doctor. We also should make sure that in our quest to provide everyone access to good health care, we don’t eliminate the health coverage that more than 100 million Americans currently receive through their jobs.
Unfortunately, special-interest groups with their own agendas have waded into this debate and have said they will stop at nothing until they get what they want, regardless of whether it’s best for you and your family. CBS News ran a story recently highlighting some of these groups that have ties to another organization Ohioans are unfortunately acquainted with – ACORN. The groups’ stated purpose, according to a press release, is to launch “the largest national progressive campaign in history, one that was lacking when President Clinton’s health care proposals were defeated” in the early 1990s. But it will be a campaign if disinformation meant to convince working families that the government can make better health decisions than you and your doctor. But let’s remember who these groups are; in the case of ACORN, they reportedly remain under federation investigation for possible ballot fraud. Shockingly, this group continues to receive your tax dollars. I’ve called for defunding this organization to stop your tax dollars from being used to pay for this group’s questionable activities.
The model these groups use to push government-run health care is the State Childrens’ Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). When this bipartisan program was created in 1997, it was meant to provide affordable, quality health care to children whose families absolutely could not afford it. Since then, though, this program has been opened up not just to working adults but attempts have been made to use it to cover illegal immigrants. There are anywhere from 236,000 to 245,000 children in Ohio who have no health coverage. But more than 160,000 of those childrens’ parents haven’t signed them up for this program despite the benefits it would provide. We need to take care of those children first.
Last month, I and other Republican leaders sent a letter to President Obama expressing our desire to work together to identify better solutions to reform our health care system. You can read that letter on my website, www.JohnBoehner.House.Gov. And the House Republican Solutions Group on Health Care Reform, led by Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, is working hard to develop betters solutions to government-run health care based on our principles of accountability, personal choice and limiting government interference. I look forward to sharing these better solutions with you and your families.
