Thank you so much for your thoughtful response to my earlier emails regarding health care. I appreciate your attention and your bi-partisan tone. Identifying the range of years of rising health care costs, 1980-2010, places responsibility on both parties. And of course you say it outright: “Congress needs to work in a bi-partisan fashion to find a solution that would allow health care to be affordable for all Americans.” But as much as I appreciate that tone and sentiment, the Empowering Patients First Act and your support of it are anything but bi-partisan. This legislation is an opposite example of the two parties working together, so I’m confused why and disturbed that you implied that it is. I vastly prefer your tone over President-elect Trump’s or Speaker Ryan’s, but if you use that tone to mask opposite intentions and behavior, how are you better? You closed by saying, “I am working towards a bi-partisan solution to solve the problem of unaffordable health care.” Could you please explain in what sense that solution is bi-partisan?
Chris Gavaler
Dear Bob, 