By Rep. Kevin Yoder and Emanuel Cleaver "I'm right and you're evil." Too many arguments these days, whether at kitchen tables across America or in the well of the House of Representatives, revolve around that premise. Early Wednesday morning, Rep. Steve Scalise, congressional staffer Zach Barth, and former staffer Matt Mika were injured when an extremist attacked congressional Republicans at a regularly scheduled practice for the charity Congressional Baseball Game. Thankfully, special agents David Bailey and Crystal Griner, two brave Capitol Police officers on House Majority Whip Scalise's protective detail, took down the attacker, after suffering injuries themselves, and prevented him from doing any more damage. Thanks to the heroism of the Capitol Police, all those injured are expected to fully recover. But this horrific tragedy, in which the shooter's motive appears to have been his political beliefs, has shed light on a fact that we all know to be true: Our nation is deeply divided. Now, we must be clear -- the blame for this violence and bloodshed lies solely with the attacker. No political rhetoric in America, no matter how heated, advocates or condones violence. But if our political arguments are based on the premise that one side is right and the other is evil, it makes it much easier for twisted minds to justify violence. And we cannot deny that coming together to find compromise solutions to our nation's biggest problems is much harder if we take this approach. How can you compromise with evil? We've always believed that civility is a vital element of our democracy, but in today's heated climate, we need it more than ever. It is this belief that has motivated us as chairmen of the Congressional Civility Caucus. You may not find two members of Congress who disagree more on issues. We represent neighboring districts in Kansas and Missouri as Republicans and Democrats, but if you ask our constituents at home about the nature of our relationship, you'll hear that we are great friends. We often spend our periods of district work doing joint events, promoting the idea of civility and bipartisanship. For us, it's the norm. For too many, it's shocking. In light of Wednesday's attack, now is the time to prioritize civility and tone down our rhetoric. If people are resorting to violence, we've clearly gone too far. America is at its greatest when Republicans and Democrats are working together to move our nation forward, because at the end of the day we all pledge allegiance to the same flag and sing the same national anthem before every baseball game. And that is what we will do Thursday night at the Congressional Baseball Game. We will not be deterred by this hateful act. The game will go on, as it has every year since 1909. The game is one of the best things we have in Congress. It's a night where we all come together --people who may be at odds during the day in the hallways of the Capitol -- and head a few blocks down the road to Washington Nationals Park to work together for a good cause. We hope the bipartisan, unified, and civil sentiment at Thursday's baseball game will carry into Friday's debates. And we will continue to bring that message to Congress and the American people.

By Rep. Kevin Yoder The Obamacare status quo is unacceptable. It's become so obvious that politicians on both sides of the aisle are acknowledging it and proposing solutions to fix it. The majority of House Republicans voted to pass the American Health Care Act in May, which currently awaits debate in the Senate. The majority of House Democrats have proposed an alternative fix called the Expanded & Improved Medicare for All Act, otherwise known as "single payer." This should send shivers down the spine of any tax-paying, Constitution-loving American. Socialized medicine in America is no longer a hypothetical. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) won 12 million votes in the 2016 Democratic primary with a single payer platform, and the DNC is encouraging Democrats to campaign on the issue in 2018. But what would the single payer reality look like? First, the cost. The nonpartisan Urban Institute studied Sanders' plan, determining it would cost taxpayers an additional $32 trillion over the next decade. Essentially the federal government would have to double the $3.2 trillion in tax receipts it collected in 2016 each year to pay for it. Doubling the size of the federal government would take massive tax increases. An across the board doubling of rates would drive the top bracket from 39.6 percent to a whopping 79.2 percent tax of their income. Individuals making $38,000 a year would see their marginal rate grow to 50 percent from the current 25 percent. In return, every American would be forced onto a socialized health care system to receive insurance from central planners in Washington. Every single American who has a private health insurance policy - some 178 million Americans - would immediately be forced off of their current insurance. In America, we value choice, competition, and access to care. In socialized medicine, those luxuries would be gone. For a real world example, look to Great Britain, where think tanks, universities, and government officials say its National Health Service (NHS) is at its breaking point. "Financial strain, staff shortages, and unprecedented demand" are leading to rationing of care. Under a similar system, our wait times for routine surgeries like knee replacements would surpass 14 weeks, far longer than the 11 days it is now. Long wait times would worsen our already existing emergency room overcrowding because Medicaid patients can't find primary care doctors who will accept their insurance. Eventually, our emergency rooms could face a 50 percent doctor shortage. In addition to the overcrowding, severe doctor shortages would be exacerbated as doctors would flee the system rather than be forced to take inadequate reimbursements for their services as set by the government. Eventually, a two-tiered system based on wealth status would emerge here as it has in other socialized systems. Private doctors would allow wealthy patients to jump the line for same-day appointments for a price. The rest of us would be forced to wait months for a visit with the government. The Democrats' single payer dream would double every American's' taxes to pay Washington bureaucrats to manage government-run hospitals. Wait times would increase exponentially and access to life-saving care would shrink. It would be a nightmare for the American people. Thankfully, it's not too late. To stop socialized medicine from becoming reality, Congress must continue its rescue mission. We must bring insurers back to the marketplace so we can lower costs and increase access to care. The House has laid out one pathway to save American health care. As the Senate appears poised to vote on a bill soon, one thing remains true: our country must unite in our opposition to the nightmare of socialized medicine.

By Kevin Yoder We are witnessing the dangerous collapse of Obamacare. The last insurance provider in Iowa offering plans on Obamacare's individual marketplace announced it will stop selling them. That means 72,000 Iowans, including those with pre-existing conditions, will have no options for care in 2018. People across dozens of counties in Tennessee face the same fate. About 2.8 million people in more than 1,000 counties across the country are one insurance company pulling out of the market away from having no options. Kansas or Missouri could be next. Even families who do have coverage in name only through Obamacare face skyrocketing premiums and out-of-pocket costs approaching $13,000. Kansans were stuck with a 42 percent premium increase for 2017. Under Obamacare, the federal government has regulated competition out of the market, which has ballooned the cost of care, leaving patients with no good options, if any at all. The choice before us is clear: Move toward socialized medicine or return to personalized medicine. Rather than giving the federal government full control of health care decisions, lowering the quality of care and costing taxpayers more than $30 trillion over 10 years -- what a single payer system will do -- I voted to choose markets over mandates, innovation over regulation and patients over bureaucrats. Lowering the cost of care is the rising tide that will lift all boats. The American Health Care Act takes direct aim at lowering costs by making necessary and immediate repairs to what's left of the devastated individual marketplace. For the 93 percent of people who get insurance through employers or the government, coverage likely won't change. For the 7 percent of Americans on the individual marketplace, the AHCA provides more choice and competition, leading to lower premiums and greater access to care. It does it by repealing nearly $1 trillion in job-killing taxes driving up the cost of health care and promoting freedom and choice by undoing the regulatory framework centered on the failed individual and employer mandates. Now, we all know someone with a pre-existing condition, friends and family members who deserve access to affordable coverage like anyone else. That's why we leave in place Obamacare's rules preventing insurance providers from denying coverage or charging more expensive rates based on health status. Health care decisions are best made by those who understand each state's unique patient population, not bureaucrats in Washington. If a state can show more innovative solutions to protect individuals with pre-existing conditions, it can tailor-make its own regulations in certain instances. However, as long as you have continuous coverage, you cannot be charged more for a pre-existing condition in any state, waiver or not. And even those Americans with gaps in coverage will find their plans heavily subsidized to ensure affordable care for all. Allowing states to innovate has to be part of any solution to our health care needs. No longer can we expect a one-size-fits-all health care system to create the solutions we need to lower costs. Look at Maine, which implemented a successful invisible risk-sharing program that protected people with pre-existing conditions much better than Obamacare. It cut premiums across the board by 50 percent and guaranteed individuals with pre-existing conditions access to the same plans as healthy individuals with no stigma. It's invisible because you don't know you're a part of it. It's a model for other states to follow. Too many politicians break their campaign promises. I've run on repealing and replacing Obamacare with reforms that lower costs and increase access to care every election. After thoroughly reading and understanding the bill, this is the right thing to do, and I'm keeping my promise by voting yes.