Repealing Obamacare

Floor Speech

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Mr. GOSAR. Thank you, Dr. Benishek. Thank you for having this opportunity through these Special Orders.

I've got a unique perspective of looking at health care through a dentist's eyes, something that has stayed market based and stayed very inflationary neutral.

But before I do that, what I wanted to do is touch on my colleague, Ms. Buerkle, in regards to hospitals.

I come from rural Arizona and more important aspects of hospital care is our rural hospitals and the solvency that we're seeing with them. They've taken an undue burden because we destroyed the patient-doctor relationship, the integral aspects of all the doctors with specialties and with the hospital.

Many of the hospitals that I've been working with are finding that it's going to be insolvent very, very quickly; and, therefore, our safety net is going to be gone.

We need to look no further to see government-run health care, particularly the longest-standing health care, and that's Native American health care. We see how detrimental it actually is. We have actually seen a group of people that are so despondent about the way government has taken care of their health care that they've invoked a clause called the self-determination act, in which they are taking back their health care needs within their communities, patient based, community based, preventive based.

These are some of the things that we as health care professionals really support and really tried to build upon. We can look no further than our Native American friends to see how we can actually start that capacity of rebuilding.

Second of all, we've talked about it briefly, and that is the modality of increased competition. This is a place that the Federal Government can actually help us and intercede. We all, as professionals, can work as collusive bodies, in unison, price fixing. But insurance companies certainly do that, and this is where we can actual level the playing field by our Federalist papers to allow open competition and vertical competition against each other across State lines.

This gives us the opportunity to have many more opportunities for the marketplace. That gives us the opportunity, consumer based, so that my needs may be different. For example, I'm allergic to wheat. I need to take care of myself. I need to be able to have an opportunity if I want wellness checks, if I want to see. I have different riders for lymphomas, all those different things I need to have the opportunity for. And that gives me the playing field on which I can play, particularly when there's more options out there. We're competing against each other and State lines.

Like my good friend from Louisiana talked about, State laws that almost give a monopoly to certain insurers within a State. This is the opportunity to open those doors and start to bypass the ERISA laws, opening up the competition model so that we all have an opportunity. You know, there was a conversation that was taking place, but we've lost it. Instead of a single-payer, how about a single-pool?

Here's our opportunity to make sure that we've got great competition within the marketplace. Dentist, no, because we compete that way. You know, once upon a time insurance wanted to take over dentistry. There is an insurer called Delta Dental, and it was dentistry that was actually building insurers basically for the patients.

That's how we became the marketplace, opportunity. This gave us the opportunity that everybody got to choose and pick, and those are the things we have to look at.

Last but not least, all parts of this, this government-run health care, we need to really point at a vibrant economy. No closer do we have to look at this discussion than the withholding tax. Part of this money goes into the Social Security fund but also into

Medicare. When we don't have a vibrant economy, we don't have the money going into our health care portfolio.

This is why it's all integrated. This isn't one separate entity. It's all integrated into a Nation that has a vibrant economy; and that's where we have to poignantly look, establish a new playing field, open up the rules, even get tort reform.

And we can learn from our States. This is one where one size doesn't fit all, but we can work with a value: what happens in Texas, what would happen in California. How about mediation that all medical malpractice cases have to go to mediation before they can go to court.

Isn't that magical? That's exactly what happens in Oregon. These are opportunities to take the brightest pieces across this country and putting them together and working it on the basis for patient preference, allowing them to pick. There's nothing more dear to somebody than their health care.

I'd like to thank my good friend, Mr. Benishek, for putting this together.

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