Congressman Devin Nunes today called on the White House to go beyond the beltway in crafting health care reform legislation. The White House meeting, scheduled to take place tomorrow, currently includes a delegation from the House and Senate, as well as Obama Administration officials. However, there will be no representatives of state governments or U.S. territories, which will bear the brunt of health care reform costs.
"The White House seems intent on excluding anyone who doesn’t reside inside the beltway from the health care reform debate,” Rep. Nunes said.
Democrats first embarked on their top-down approach last year when they tried to rush legislation through Congress without public input. They ducked town hall meetings and held negotiations in secret. Now, under their new open approach to health care reform, they are excluding input from one of the most important elements of meaningful reform – state governments.
Congressman Nunes is Chairman of the State Solutions Project, a group of Congressional Republicans working with reform-minded GOP governors and state legislators to fight Washington bureaucracy, inefficiency, and waste, and to promote better solutions to the challenges facing the American people.
As part of his statement, Rep. Nunes released a letter to President Obama written by the Chair of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) Health Task Force. The letter, signed by both Democratic and Republican legislators from Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington. It is included below:
February 24, 2010
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear President Obama:
Earlier this month, we learned of your call for a bipartisan summit so that our nation can move forward in solving our health care crisis. And now tomorrow, a select group of federal lawmakers will contribute their health reform vision to the national dialogue.
However, we think you’re missing a critical element in this discussion—the ideas of thousands of state legislators. We know that any federal health care legislation will eventually rely on the states to implement, manage, and fund the reform effort. Many state legislators, like us, are also concerned about the effects that a proposed individual or employer mandate will have on our citizens and small businesses. We are disappointed that state legislators have not been involved in this effort and that you would not include state legislators in tomorrow’s meeting.
That’s why we’re moving forward with a nationwide effort to ensure that the cornerstone of any state or federal health reform is the protection of patients’ rights. We are the sponsors of the Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act, an initiative by 36 states to protect our patients’ rights to pay directly for medical care, and to prohibit the government from fining our citizens for failing to purchase government-approved health insurance. This quickly-moving measure was recently passed with bipartisan support in houses of the Virginia and Tennessee legislatures, and will be put before Arizona voters in November.
So while you discuss health reform solutions at Blair House tomorrow, we will pursue our own initiatives—not only to protect health care freedom, but to also reduce health costs; increase access to quality, affordable health insurance; and improve the quality of care. We know you share these goals, we believe that there are valuable lessons to be learned as state legislators move ahead with innovative health reform solutions, and we continue to hope that state legislators will be invited to participate as this process moves forward.
Sincerely,
Representative Linda Upmeyer
Minority Whip, Iowa House District 12
Chair, ALEC’s HHS Task Force
