While the current debate revolves around radical overhauls of the U.S. health care system, the overwhelming majority of Americans – regardless of their political affiliation – want Washington to focus on common-sense, bipartisan action to reduce the cost of health care.
According to a new POLITICO-Harvard Poll, roughly 80 percent of Americans rank “taking steps to lower the cost of health care’ as ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ important, including 89 percent of Democrats and 76 percent of Republicans.”
Just last week, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan received an award from the American Medical Association (AMA) for setting “an example for the rest of the country” by keeping “his promise to focus on bipartisan, commonsense solutions in the area of health care.” As governor, Hogan has led bipartisan health care reforms that have saved billions of dollars in unnecessary costs. While health care premiums have continued to rise nationally, Maryland’s healthcare premiums have declined by double-digits for two consecutive years.
Hogan’s bipartisan success on this issue provides a model for how Washington can address the “top priority” of Americans this year.