America has the best health care delivery system in the world. Profit motive and American ingenuity create innovative and better diagnostic tools, medications and treatments every year.

The first rule of medicine is, above all, to do no harm. Where President Obama wishes to use a sledge hammer, we should be using a scalpel. There are ways to improve America’s health care system. But socialized medicine is not one of them.

Socialized medicine would be tragic for America and deadly for American citizens. Socialized medicine causes rationed care (with ensuing extended, untreated illnesses and death). Socialized medicine stifles creativity and means stagnant advances in diagnostics, medications and other treatments.

I believe the radical socialized medicine advocated by President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others in Washington must be defeated at all costs!

Our health care system does not need radical treatment. It needs tweaking.

As your Congressman, Mo Brooks will fight for:

• Interstate competition for health insurance companies. The more the competition, the better the pricing.

• Tort reform. Malpractice insurance costs health care providers tens of billions of dollars a year . . . costs that are passed on to patients in the form of higher bills. Defensive medicine prompted by lawsuit threats costs health care providers over $100 billion a year . . . again costs passed on to patients in the form of higher bills.

America must address tort reform to make health care more affordable.

• Health Insurance Tax Credits. If the federal government is going to help with health care costs, the best way to do that is by making health insurance a full or partial tax credit (versus the deduction it is today). A tax credit has the side benefit of lowering the cost of doing business in America which, in turn, makes America more competitive in the international marketplace which, in turn, creates jobs, jobs and more jobs.

• Elimination of Certificate of Need Requirements. Certificate of Need requirements stifle competition by prohibiting the addition of new nursing home or hospital beds in a community without state government approval.

By way of example, in the City of Madison, Huntsville Hospital and Crestwood Hospital have battled for years (and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more) seeking permission to build a hospital. This exorbitant cost did not help treat one sick patient. Unnecessary delays risked Madison residents’ lives. Elimination of Certificate of Need requirements will expand competition, help drive health care costs down, and eliminate governmental and private sector costs created by the Certificate of Need process.

• Eliminating Illegal Alien Costs. Public policy is replete with cascading consequences that escape the notice of too many Congressmen. Illegal aliens congest hospital emergency rooms (thereby slowing emergency care for American citizens) and drive up both taxes and insurance costs for everyone else when they don’t pay their bills.

Health care for illegal aliens costs Americans billions in dollars that could otherwise be spent on health care for American citizens! Health care costs will drop considerably if America would elect leaders who are not afraid to do what it takes to remove illegal aliens from America.

• Improving America’s Economy. America’s challenge is not the delivery of quality health care. Our challenge is making sure American citizens can afford the cost of that health care. The best way to help with health care costs is by creating higher paying jobs that make health insurance more affordable.

America needs long-term economic solutions to restore our competitiveness in the international marketplace . . . . not band-aid stimulus packages that do nothing to address our weaknesses and, to the contrary, saddle us with more debt that damages our long-term economic future..