GOP’s Healthy Future Task Force releases healthcare system modernization solutions

Republicans on the Healthy Future Task Force on June 1 announced specific solutions to modernize the nation’s healthcare system.

U.S. Reps. Vern Buchanan (R-FL), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA), and Mike Kelly (R-PA) were joined by other task force members in releasing a three-pronged agenda that would expand access to innovative healthcare technologies, and utilize cutting-edge software that would reduce waste, fraud and abuse in the United States healthcare system.

“Instead of a government-run, socialized system that would destroy medical innovation, we need to modernize and personalize health care in America to improve people’s lives and lower their costs,” Rep. Buchanan and U.S. Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY), task force co-chairs, said in a joint statement. 

According to a one-page overview of the task force’s agenda, it is based on three pillars of modernization that would: safeguard and maintain expanded telehealth access after the COVID-19 public health emergency declaration expires; focus on decreasing waste, fraud and abuse by incentivizing states to go after improper payments and utilizing state-of-the-art technology; and expand access to innovative, patient-centered technologies to improve patients’ well-being. 

Reps. Buchanan and Guthrie commended Reps. Miller-Meeks and Kelly, as well as task force member U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA), for their work on the Healthy Future Task Force to put forward the solutions, according to their joint statement. 

“These solutions also aim to improve our nation’s fiscal health by cracking down on taxpayer dollars wasted on improper payments in government healthcare programs,” said Reps. Buchanan and Guthrie. “These proposals to modernize our healthcare system build upon the Healthy Future Task Force’s work to better serve all patients and help them live healthier and longer lives.”

U.S. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) created the 17-member Healthy Future Task Force to develop these solutions. The task force includes five subcommittees: the Modernization Subcommittee, the Treatment Subcommittee, the Security Subcommittee, the Affordability Subcommittee, and the Doctor/Patient Relationship Subcommittee.