Health Care

Quality health care should be a right of all Americans, not simply those who can afford it. Unfortunately, health care costs have escalated sharply in recent years, accounting for more than 60 percent of the nation’s bankruptcies. Hoosier families have seen their premiums rise four times faster than wages over the last several years and health care costs are increasing at nearly twice the rate of inflation. This trend is unsustainable for our government and citizens.

Health care reform has received a great deal of attention recently. However, it is important to keep in mind that this is not a new debate. The discussion about how to responsibly reform our nation’s health care system so that it provides timely, quality and affordable care has been debated for the past 60 years.

Right now, there are currently five different health care reform bills pending before Congress (three in the House and two in the Senate), and several more steps for them to go through before a bill reaches the President’s desk. Enacting such important legislation rightly entails a lengthy and complex legislative process.

My position on the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce – the House committee with primary jurisdiction over the House’s health reform package – has put me on the front lines of this issue. It is a weighty responsibility, and one I take very seriously. We must reform our nation’s health care system for my constituents who tell me countless stories about how our system has failed them, for middle-class Hoosier families who can no longer afford their health insurance premiums, for those Southern Indiana residents who are denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions, and for those U.S. citizens who are uninsured.

While reviewing a final health care reform bill that comes up for a vote, I will be focusing heavily on the following overarching issues: Does this legislation place an emphasis on addressing the ills of our current health care system? Does the bill focus on containing costs and thwarting the sharp increases in health care costs Hoosier families have experienced over the last several years? Does the bill increase the quality of care available while expanding effective and affordable health care for every American? Are there adequate protections for small businesses that, particularly during this period of economic downturn, are not purchasing health care for their employees because of high costs and largely not an unwillingness to do so? Does this legislation place the same emphasis on rural health that it does on our urban counterparts? Does it contain provisions to ensure that health care reform is deficit neutral?