[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 8 (Thursday, February 3, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 3, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
            CLINTON HEALTH CARE QUESTION NO. 357, AND OTHERS

  (Mr. KINGSTON asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, this is what I call Clinton health care 
question No. 357: ``Will I have the same patient/doctor relationship 
under the Clinton health care plan that I have right now?''
  No; absolutely not. Why not? Well, your physician will no longer be 
working for you; he or she will be working for a network who works 
under the guidelines of a State-run government alliance.
  The alliance has a budget which is set by the national health board, 
which is a central bureaucracy in Washington, DC, which will tell these 
alliances in your neighborhood, in your city, in your county, how much 
they can spend on health care,
  Now, what does that mean to you, the patient? It means that when you 
go to see your physician, that the more time he or she spends with you 
the less time they can spend with other patients. The less patients 
they see, the less likelihood that they will make that State-mandated 
budget.
  Therefore, what is going to happen is your physician, if he or she is 
having to see 20 people a day now, they will be told that you have to 
see 30 people a day in order for us to make this Government-mandated, 
centralized budget.
  Mr. Speaker, the alternative, the obvious alternative, is the Michel 
plan; it keeps that doctor-patient relationship which we Americans 
treasure so highly.

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