Randy Demmer for Congress - Demmer Announces Support for Effort to Repeal and Replace Government Healthcare Takeover Legislation

On the same day that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius stumped for the government takeover of healthcare in Rochester, Republican Congressional candidate Randy Demmer reiterated his opposition to this massive government expansion, and emphasized his support for maintaining an individual’s control over their own health care choices.

“It’s obvious that Secretary Sebelius is in Rochester today because the people of southern Minnesota do not agree with a government run health care system with all of its controls and mandates” said Rep. Randy Demmer. “When I’m representing this area in Washington, I’ll work to repeal this ill-advised dismantling of our world-class health care system, and help put people back in charge of their own health care decisions. This bill will cause insurance premiums to rise, lower the quality of care, and hurt the small businesses that are the life blood of our economy.”

“What Secretary Sebelius and Congressman Walz won’t talk about is how their bill depends on job-killing tax increases, unrealistically slashes hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare, and will ultimately drive our nation toward a single-payer, government-run health care system that would be catastrophic for Mayo, for the 1st District and for our country," he said. “As we move forward with real health care reform in this country, it is vitally important that the focus be on saving money for individuals and businesses – not just shifting more of the responsibility on already overburdened taxpayers, and an already empty Federal Treasury.”

Demmer would repeal the job-killing provisions in the bill and replace them with common sense alternatives that won’t drive up the cost of healthcare or put government in the drivers’ seat, such as:

• Meaningful tort reform - too many junk lawsuits end up increasing healthcare costs;
• Moving away from an employer-based system toward an individual-based system
• Let Americans purchase health insurance across state lines.

Demmer added that there were provisions in the healthcare bill that he would fight to protect, including: coverage for pre-existing conditions; allowing dependents to remain on their parents’ insurance until the age of 25; and wellness management programs that support healthy decision-making.