Ensuring more cures and lower costs for medicine is a top priority for House Republicans, Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Republican Leader Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) and Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health Republican Leader Rep. Brett Gurthrie (R-KY) write in a joint op-ed for the Washington Times.

Click here to read the full op-ed.

Reps. Buchanan and Guthrie write:

• “No parent should wake up to find their child lifeless from a fentanyl-laced drug overdose. No nurse should have to choose between losing their job or being forced to take the vaccine. No doctor should have to retire early from frustration over paperwork and bureaucratic nightmares and shortages of critical medical supplies. No patient should receive a medical bill for thousands of dollars for a minor procedure. Yet this has been the status quo for Americans’ health care.”

• “Democrats have tried repeatedly to ‘fix’ problems in our health care system with a top-down, Washington-knows-best approach that radically transforms our health care system by handing care decisions to bureaucrats. 

• “Republicans are focusing our efforts on modernizing the American health care system to lower costs, keep Americans healthy, develop better therapies and cures, and empower Americans with more choices. Health is too personal to be solved by a one-size-fits all approach.”

Key Background:

Ways and Means Republicans have been leading the fight to bring better health care to Americans at lower costs, such as by pushing for expanding access to telehealth and urging the passage of SECURE 2.0 to help Americans save for retirement.