Posted: Friday, September 4, 2009 3:42 pm

In advance of President Barack Obama’s address before Congress on Wednesday about health care reform, Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Murfreesboro) issued the following statement about what he hopes to hear:

“The President has a tremendous opportunity to refocus the debate on health care reform. To date, there has been considerable partisanship and most of the discussion has been about things we don’t like in the various health care reform proposals, not what we do want.

“I recently held nine different public events in an effort to hear from as many of my constituents as possible. In doing so, it became clear to me that there are a lot of commonsense reforms to our health care system that people agree on and would like to see happen.

“People agree that health insurance should be portable – if you leave or lose your job, your health insurance should stay intact. Insurance companies should be prohibited from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, and they shouldn’t be able to cut off coverage when a person gets sick. Reform should reduce the rapidly increasing cost of health care and health insurance and make it easier for both people to obtain and small businesses to provide affordable coverage. State lines shouldn’t get in the way of insurance companies offering coverage – allowing this will increase options, create competition, and ultimately lower costs. Illegal immigrants should not be able to get taxpayer-funded health insurance. Medicare should be strengthened and improved, which includes eliminating the donut hole. And, any reform proposal should be deficit neutral.

“There is agreement on these issues, as well as others. I hope the President uses his opportunity on Wednesday to propose a more modest plan built around things on which Republicans and Democrats agree. This issue is too important to rush or push through. A reframed, bipartisan approach can bring about many of the reforms our health care system needs.”