Issue Position: Healthcare

Issue Position

Healthcare must be made more available and more affordable. The most effective way for achieving availability and affordability is not through increased government involvement, but rather common sense reforms that allow the free market to work.

President Obama believes the government should be in charge of your healthcare, and we are now bearing witness to the results of his flawed ideology. Obamacare has caused 280,000 Kentuckians to lose the healthcare coverage they had and liked, despite the President's repeated promise that "if you like your plan, you can keep it."

I am disappointed that Obamacare has made policies more expensive and drastically increased deductibles -- exactly the opposite result of what President Obama promised.

Small businesses throughout the Sixth District have been forced to lay off employees in order to remain open. Employees who once had full-time jobs with complete benefits are being cut to part-time positions with no benefits, simply because of the skyrocketing costs brought on by Obamacare.

COMMON SENSE REFORMS

I have been fighting for common sense health care reforms that will increase coverage and affordability. The only way to effectively represent the people of the Sixth District is to listen to their points of view, which is why I brought Congress to the Bluegrass and held a congressional field hearing focused on healthcare challenges in Kentucky. This allowed several Kentucky employers and employees the opportunity to inform Members of Congress about how Obamacare is negatively impacting them and share their thoughts on common sense reforms that can be implemented to reform America's healthcare system.

While the disastrous rollout and implementation of Obamacare continues, so do my efforts to repeal and replace it with policies centered around affordability and accessibility. I have voted for full repeal of Obamacare and I will not stop my fight until Kentuckians are granted relief from Obamacare's job killing, price increasing policies.

SOME OF THE REFORMS I SUPPORT

We must allow interstate competition among health insurers in all fifty states. This will increase choice and drive down cost. We must enact medical liability reform in order to prevent defensive medicine, lower health care costs, and save as much as $54 billion over the next decade. We must expand Association Health Plans to allow small businesses and the self-insured to band together to purchase coverage on a more affordable basis. And we must promote consumerism through tax free Health Savings Accounts that will reconnect the health care consumer to the cost of health care services.

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