Washington, D.C., Nov 4 - U.S. Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), who as the Ranking Member of the Ways and Means Committee played an instrumental role in crafting the Republican health care bill, released the following statement regarding the Republican health care bill:

“American’s health care is too important and too complex to risk on one gigantic piece of legislation.  Instead, Republicans believe in a step-by-step approach to comprehensive health care reform. The first step is to enact common sense reforms that make health insurance affordable for families, affordable for small businesses, and affordable for America. 

“Unlike the Democrat plan that increases taxes almost immediately but delays reforms for several years, the Republican plan will immediately begin to lower costs – the first step to expanding coverage. Specifically, the Republican plan will: 1) protect Americans even if they have been or get sick, 2) significantly reduce the cost of insurance premiums, especially for small businesses and their employees, and 3) improve quality of and access to our health care system.

“In giving Americans a new ability to force insurance companies to continue providing coverage if they wrongly terminate a plan, implementing meaningful lawsuit reforms – like those in Texas and California – and through other reforms, every American will have access to a health insurance plan and we will lower premium prices – without raising taxes.”

To learn more about the Republican plan, please click here for a summary and please click here for the full bill text.