Opinion: Real results found in the middle

Watching the news, you’d think Washington, D.C., is in one big, perpetual standoff – Republicans on one side, Democrats on the other and a whole bunch of nothing getting done. While the cameras don’t like pointing the lens toward the middle, that’s where I’ve been day in and day out, working hard throughout my time in D.C., solving tough problems and making sure Missourians are heard.

I’ve witnessed the Washington dysfunction you always hear about in the news firsthand, but I’ve never succumbed to the chaos. I’ve been more focused on the harder job of reaching across the aisle, making compromises and working with my colleagues to actually get things done on behalf of Missourians. Instead of focusing on what divides us, I find issues big and small that Republicans and Democrats are willing to work on together – and we’ve gotten results.

One of the areas I’m proud to have found common ground and achieved real change is addressing issues that plague our health care system. When Maine’s Republican Sen. Susan Collins and I learned that pharmacy “gag clauses” were prohibiting pharmacists from telling customers they could pay less for their prescription if they pay out of pocket, we teamed up and got to work. We passed legislation to finally end this egregious, expensive practice and help save Missourians money on their prescriptions.

That’s the same approach I’ve taken in addressing serious issues in the air ambulance industry. After a life-threatening accident, families who need an air ambulance rescue can be stuck with tens of thousands of dollars in bills – and that’s after insurance has paid the claim. To put an end to this unfair practice, I teamed up with a Republican colleague to demand answers from the federal government, put pressure on insurers and air ambulance providers, introduced legislation with a companion Republican proposal in the House of Representatives, and worked with colleagues to make sure we moved the needle to bring more oversight and accountability to an industry that seemed to operate without either.

By focusing on the issues, being willing to listen, negotiate and work together, we’ve brought bipartisan reforms to the air ambulance industry. Oversight, accountability and critical consumer protections are now law – real results for real issues.

That’s why I’m so hopeful about the work that’s being done on the bipartisan Senate health care transparency working group I’m a part of, a team of three Republicans and three Democrats. We recently released draft legislation to bring an end to the practice known as balance billing, which leaves far too many Americans with unaffordable medical bills when their providers are out-of-network.

Fighting unfair practices and making health care affordable shouldn’t be partisan issues. While the nightly news is sure to keep cameras on the extremes, I’ll be where I’ve always been, smack dab in the middle – where we get real results for Missouri.

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill can be reached at McCaskill.Senate.gov/contact.