Let’s Stop the Bickering and Fix the Health Care System
If either of us were building the American health care system from scratch, we’d probably end up in different places. We have contrasting ideas — one of us is a Democrat, the other a Republican — about what ails the system and how to reshape it. But this is not the time for more partisan fighting.

If either of us were building the American health care system from scratch, we’d probably end up in different places.

We have contrasting ideas — one of us is a Democrat, the other a Republican — about what ails the system and how to reshape it. But this is not the time for more partisan fighting. It’s time to build a better system, even if incrementally, because that’s what the American people deserve. It’s time to put aside blame and stabilize a health care marketplace where premiums are expected to rise by more than 15 percent in most states and millions of people are worried about obtaining or affording coverage.

This week the 43-member House Problem Solvers Caucus — which we lead and which is almost evenly split between Democrats and Republicans — released a carefully drafted compromise to shore up the struggling insurance exchanges.

Ultimately, everyone had to give a little and endorse provisions that purists in both our parties may not like. This is how American democracy is supposed to work, even if it has not for quite some time.