The ADAPT Act, Fire Hydrants, and the NSA The ADAPT Act Regular readers of this column are aware of my ongoing efforts to improve the quality and safety of our health care system and increase patient choice and control. We have numerous bills that have been introduced, and that the various committees are working on. Among those committees that are working on improvements to our health care system... Read more »
On My Christmas List… Last week, I introduced the EPA MACT (Maximum Achievable Contraction of Technocrats) Act, which would cut the EPA’s workforce by a reasonable 15 percent over a realistic three- to four-year period. Regular readers of this column are aware that I am not the EPA’s biggest fan. However, I do want clean air and clean water, and I will give some credit where it is due. In the pas... Read more »
Bipartisan Bill I Worked On Signed Into Law Last week, President Obama signed into law the Drug Quality and Security Act. This win for common sense came after investigations into last fall’s fungal meningitis outbreak tied to tainted injections prepared by Massachusetts’ New England Compounding Center (NECC). Traditional compounding pharmacies are overseen by State boards of pharmacy. They tend t... Read more »
Many children are taught that America’s First Thanksgiving took place in 1621 at Massachusetts’ Plymouth Plantation. But it is Virginia, and not the Bay State, that has the right to claim ownership of the First English settlement Thanksgiving. In 1619 – around a year before the pilgrims even arrived at Plymouth – a group of English colonists arrived at Berkeley Plantation and established the Thank... Read more »
Drill, Baby, Drill – Guess What? It Worked! Previously, President Obama mockingly described Republicans’ energy strategy as: “Step one is drill, and step two is drill, and then step three is keep drilling.” However, regular readers of this column know that simply isn’t the case. To provide jobs, secure our energy future, and keep costs low, we believe in an all-of-the-above energy policy in which... Read more »
Dear Friend, You may think that the House of Representatives has dropped the investigation into what transpired in the September 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi, but if so, you are mistaken. This important investigation is ongoing, and can be tracked at the website below or by typing ‘Benghazi’ in the upper right corner of the website for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence - http://i... Read more »
Keep Your Health Plan Act Americans who have a health care plan that they like ought to be able to keep that plan. To that end, I joined Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and a number of other Members of Congress in introducing H.R. 3350, the Keep Your Health Plan Act. This bill would allow health insurance plans currently available on the individual market to be offered ne... Read more »
This Week in Washington: Coal and Obamacare Obamacare Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Wednesday, October 30 testified before my colleagues and me on the Energy and Commerce Committee on the rollout of the health care law. Even after her testimony, more questions remain. However, what Secretary Sebelius made clear to me was that she doesn’t want to join the exchanges ... Read more »
Obamacare Implementation Failures – Website and Rural America Since the launch of the health care reform law’s exchanges on October 1, we have seen many reports of significant problems with the law’s website and, even worse, health insurance plans that are more expensive and/or have significantly higher deductibles. Furthermore, an October 24 piece in Forbes* stated that more Americans (over 500,... Read more »
Implementation of Obamacare is “fabulous??” October 1 was the day that the website for Obamacare launched, and Americans were able to try and research or sign up for health care coverage through the law’s exchanges. Leading up to the website’s launch (and despite warnings of significant problems and an impending train wreck)… Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, known for having said that Co... Read more »
