Republican Main Street Partnership Urges the White House to Focus on Healthcare Common Ground

Former U.S. Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) – “If the White House is serious about getting healthcare reform passed in this Congress then it needs to focus on those common-sense, common ground items that enjoy wide bi-partisan support.”

Contact: Chris Barron
(202) 286-4533

(Washington, D.C.) – In advance of the White House’s healthcare summit, former U.S. Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), current President and CEO of Main Street, issued the following statement:

“The clock is ticking on healthcare reform in Washington. If the White House is serious about getting healthcare reform passed in this Congress, then it needs to focus on those common-sense, common ground items that enjoy wide bi-partisan support.

“We can make quality, affordable healthcare available for all Americans, and we can do so without burdening our children and grandchildren with mountains of debt. To do so, however, we need to focus on bipartisan solutions that will expand access, lower costs and improve the quality of care.

“The Republican Main Street Partnership, which represents centrist Republicans in the House and Senate, has laid out 10 ‘Principles for Healthcare Reform.’ While this list is not exhaustive, we believe it provides a solid framework around which we can forge a meaningful healthcare reform compromise.”

MAIN STREET’S PRINCIPLES FOR REFORM:

1) Preserve, protect and strengthen the private system of healthcare and the private system of health insurance. To do so, we must oppose any proposal that provides for a “government option.”

2) Shift our emphasis from the current “treatment paradigm” to one that focuses on the prevention of illness and disease.

3) Work to lower healthcare costs across the system. We should make lowering the cost of healthcare a priority.

4) Eliminate fraud and waste in both the public and private healthcare systems. Fraud in the Medicare and Medicaid systems alone costs taxpayers billions of dollars each year.

5) Enact meaningful tort reform that protects patients but at the same time ends the abuse of frivolous lawsuits brought by unscrupulous trial lawyers. The current system fails both patients and providers.

6) Harness 21st century technologies and innovation. Health information technology, for example, can save money and save lives.

7) Encourage cutting edge research and the development of new life-saving and life-extending treatments by updating the research and development tax credit and making it permanent.

8) Empower individuals to have more control over their healthcare decisions.

9) Encourage competition across the healthcare system to help lower costs and improve quality of care.

10) Prioritize federal healthcare dollars – eliminate wasteful, inefficient or unrelated spending in Healthcare Appropriations bills.

The Republican Main Street Partnership (RMSP) is dedicated to promoting and building a pragmatic, thoughtful, fiscally conservative, and inclusive “Governing Majority,” where political debate is encouraged to promote solutions to improve the lives of all Americans. Embracing the full spectrum of center-right ideologies and values in order to build coalitions, RMSP is the largest organization of elected leaders who are in the mold of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan. For more information on RMSP, visit our website at www.republicanmainstreet.org.