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By Joseph Russell- Talk Radio News Service
U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) discussed the future of employer provided healthcare at the Heritage Foundation.

The lessons learned from failed universal care programs are alarming and allowing the United States to become another “laboratory” for mandated health care programs will yield similar results, according to U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). According to Blackburn, who spoke comments yesterday at the Heritage Foundation, these systems yield runaway administrative costs and diminish patient access to quality healthcare due to "serious government mismanagement."

“We need to shift the focus,” Blackburn said. “So its not about punishment, and punishing employers, and punishing individuals, and limiting access. That’s not the way to do health care reform. We need to flip it and focus on the positive.”

Blackburn said that U.S. health care reform needs to be a priority of the government. However, putting insurance in the hands of the consumer allows more people to have access to healthcare while keeping costs down, she said. The “pay to play” system for employers to continue to provide benefits to employees under universal health care will cost more than 1.5 million jobs and shift 120 million people from private insurance to public insurance, she said.

The “pay to play” system Democrats have proposed “allows” employers to buy into insurance programs through a newly proposed National Insurance Exchange. The insurance exchange forces insurance companies to offer the same benefits as their competitors, including the government, but they are paid more if the enroll higher risk patients.