Mark Cohen

“Insurance and pharmaceutical companies make huge profits from illness while MBAs make healthcare decisions instead of doctors. Congress won’t pass real reform because insurance and pharmaceutical companies donate to both parties and engage in constant lobbying. I am an independent. Here is what I will do.

• Restore the Medicaid funding Congress cut. Congress cut $1 trillion from Medicaid to fund tax cuts for billionaires. Rural hospitals and clinics depend on Medicaid, as do many veterans and rural Nebraskans.
  
• I will push for federal laws requiring upfront disclosure of facility fees, banning them at off-campus clinics that function like ordinary doctor’s offices, and protecting Medicare and Medicaid patients from bills they never saw coming.
  
• Expand Medicare’s authority to negotiate drug prices. The first ten negotiated prices took effect January 1 at discounts of 38 to 79 percent off list. That worked. If the VA can negotiate drug prices, Medicare can too, and I would take that authority well past ten drugs.
  
• Reform pharmacy benefit managers. This has bipartisan support and it would help keep rural pharmacies open. In much of my district the local pharmacy is the only healthcare a person sees between appointments.
  
• Stop the “one size fits all” coding requirements for rural hospitals and clinics. The government won’t pay rural hospitals and clinics unless they enter the proper codes into complex systems, but rural hospitals and clinics can’t afford to buy the software and hire the people that can do this. Garden County Health Services should not have to meet the same standard as a hospital in Chicago.
  
• Strengthen and vigorously enforce the antitrust laws. Competition brings prices down.
  
• Fight for strict regulation of insurance companies.
  
• Support preventative care. Care that prevents a hospitalization costs less than hospitalization.
• Get the money out of politics. We will not get common sense healthcare legislation until our leaders work for us instead of large donors.

I live in Lemoyne, Nebraska. The sign says, “Population 81,” but that probably includes the summer population. My district includes 80 counties and borders six states. At least one hospital and several clinics have already closed. When people can’t get healthcare, they leave and small towns die. Telling people to “suck it up” is not acceptable.”

Statement submitted by campaign or congressional office