Issue Position: Health Care

Issue Position

In the 112th Congress, Sen. Murkowski and her colleagues will be looking for ways to repeal some of the most egregious parts of the health care law, such as the tax increases on small businesses and American families, onerous new IRS requirements and health care cuts to senior citizens on Medicare. Congress and the American people were promised that the health care law would bring down their health care costs. Unfortunately, initial accounts by government officials indicate that insurance premiums will continue to rise and that the health care law will not reduce costs. Sen. Murkowski strongly believes that the way to achieve this is by getting at the heart of our spiraling health care costs. In a bipartisan vote, the U.S. House of Representatives on January 19, 2011, voted 245 -- 189 to repeal the health care reform law. Should a similar proposal come before the Senate, Sen. Murkowski will vote in favor of repeal.

The health care overhaul, signed into law in March 2010, was supposed to contain out-of-control health care costs. Instead, the American people got a $2.6 trillion law that expands the federal government's role in health care. Rather than finding solutions to fix a broken health care system, the law slashes $529 billion from Medicare at a time when the program is slated to go broke in seven years, and also increases taxes by more than a half trillion dollars over 10 years.

There are a number of federal lawsuits across the country challenging the health care law, and several lower courts have issued conflicting opinions on whether the law's mandate forcing Americans to purchase health insurance is constitutional. Alaska has joined with 25 other states in the largest of these suits that was filed in the State of Florida.

Sen. Murkowski believes that we must replace the flawed law with reforms that will halt the spiraling costs of health care. Such reforms would include addressing medical malpractice reform to reduce the practice of defensive medicine, allowing insurers to sell across state lines and creating incentives for health care providers to be reimbursed for the value of their services rather than the volume of their services.

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