Opinion polling—and the national mood—indicate Republicans have a good chance of taking control of the House and possibly the Senate in Tuesday’s elections. So what will their agenda be?
The new Congress should prioritize positive policy initiatives. House Republicans have spent most of this session of Congress developing plans through their Commitment to America, and they will hold hearings on these policy initiatives as a precursor to passing legislation. Most bills will face President Biden’s veto pen, but they will show they have ideas and are ready to govern.
House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy says the House will be making use of its investigatory powers. To show the need for reform, members should expose the terrible waste and failures in the Medicaid program and explain how Obamacare is harming struggling families with sky-high deductibles and meager provider choices. They also should expose who is really benefitting from the Obamacare expansions. Hint: Health insurance companies and higher income people who already have health insurance.
Kellyanne Conway says this could be a “realignment” election. This is long in coming. Republicans increasingly are becoming the party of working Americans, and Democrats, of wealthy coastal elites. So conservatives’ first priority should be helping to heal our ailing economy to help struggling American families.
They would show Biden he’s wrong in saying Republicans have no ideas. It’s just that their ideas get little news coverage. A steady stream of committee hearings about their policy ideas will force the mainstream media to cover them.
The main themes on health care should be this:
- Stop the expansions of bloated government programs and repair them.
- Start building on the infrastructure for a patient-centered health sector that already exists.
Democrats have been working for more than half a century to fortify their plans for government-run health care. Sadly, they have been all too successful. But liberals just pour more and more taxpayer money into programs that are desperately in need of modernization and just are not sustainable. Margaret Thatcher was right.
Meanwhile, Democrats use the bureaucracy to write regulations to benefit their government programs and squeeze out private sector competition.
The latest example is the terrible Inflation “Reduction” Act passed in August. It further fueled inflation, hammered private sector innovation and competition, and injected even more taxpayer money to keep Obamacare afloat and potentially add millions more people.
We are starting from behind, with the great majority of the $4 trillion spent annually on health care in the U.S. dominated by government. But we have many programs we can build on—programs which liberals are trying hard to destroy—but that would bring freedom and patient power to our health sector:
- Health Savings Accounts
- Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements
- Medicare Advantage
- Medicare Part D
- Short-term health plans
- Association health plans
Building on these and other initiatives should be the priority.
And a first order of business should be doing everything possible to unwind the damage of the Inflation Act to Medicare Part D and pharmaceutical innovation overall.
Already, companies are pulling promising drugs from their research labs because of the Medicare “negotiation” provisions. If Joe Biden really wants his “Cancer Moonshot” to succeed, he should start working with the drug companies that actually invent and develop new drugs instead of imposing draconian price controls and penalties that kill innovation instead of cancer.So let’s see how Tuesday goes. We are ready to help develop and explain new and better ideas that put doctors and patients in charge of health care choices and create a health sector that is innovative
