Health Care

Read Rep. Demmer's Press Release in response to Secretary Sebelius' visit to Rochester where he calls for the repeal of the recently enacted health care bill.

The First Congressional District is home to some of the best health care facilities in the world – but too many of our citizens either don’t have access or are in danger of losing coverage because of spiraling costs. We need real system-wide reform right now – policies that change the way we access, deliver, and pay for all aspects of health care.

On March 22, Tim Walz joined Nancy Pelosi and the most liberal of the House Democrats and voted to pass an irresponsible and dangerous government takeover of health care - a bill that needs to be repealed.

All Republicans and the more moderate Democrats voted against this massive growth in government. The final product is a trillion dollar expansion of an already broken set of entitlements, paid for with unrealistic savings projections and accounting gimmicks. While it is absolutely necessary that all Americans have access to affordable, high-quality health care, this bill – laden with more government mandates; more intrusion into people’s personal lives and decisions; and billions of dollars of carve-outs and exemptions for special interests – is not the solution that voters in the First District were looking for.

It is easy to criticize, so let’s focus instead on what is needed: incentives for caregivers to offer the highest quality care at the most reasonable cost; payment based on value and on outcomes, not on volume or unneeded procedures; individual ownership and responsibility for their health care decisions, independent of their employer; better information on cost and quality with billing that makes sense to the average person; a financially sound safety net to care for the most vulnerable in times of their greatest need.