Mullin clings to hope for health care reform

July 29--U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin said he is hopeful lawmakers can eventually come together to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with a version he and many Republicans will find more acceptable.

Mullin, serving Oklahoma's 2nd Congressional District, fielded questions from 10 people Thursday night during a telephone town hall as senators twisted arms in an effort to repeal what is commonly referred to as Obamacare. He also briefed listeners about his take on things going on in Washington.

"We've been waiting for the Senate to act," he said of health care. Early Friday morning the Senate failed to muster the votes needed to pass its version of a bill to repeal the ACA.

"We're in kind of a holding pattern here on health care until the Senate can get their act together," Mullin said. "I know you hear a lot about us being a 'do-nothing' Congress, but that's just not true: In the House we have been very active and actually working in a bipartisan way, not on every bill, but on several bills."

Mullin touted the unanimous passage of the RACE Act for Children as a recent bipartisan success. The measure aims to help make more drugs available for the treatment of pediatric cancers.

"At the end of the day we passed one of the first health care bills to get passed since 2008," he said. "To give you and overview of what that does, there are about 900 drugs and treatments used to treat adult cancer ..., but there are less than a half dozen drugs available for treatment of pediatric cancer."

Passage of the Cross Border Energy Infrastructure Act places the nation's infrastructure needs in front of political interests, Mullin said. The act puts a bipartisan board in place after passage with support from both parties.

"How can we remove politics out of the permit system?" Mullin said. He said the act will take politics out of the process and replace it with a focus on the public's best interest.

No callers took Mullin to task for breaking his campaign promise to limit his time in Congress to three terms. He announced earlier this year his plans to campaign for a fourth term, a decision for which he was lauded by at least two callers.

Reach Mike Elswick at (918) 684-2954 or melswick@muskogeephoenix.com.

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