[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 63 (Thursday, May 19, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 19, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  1130
 
                    A MEDICAL MIRACLE IN CALIFORNIA

  (Mr. BAKER of California asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute, and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BAKER of California. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk today about a 
little girl 13 years old in Laguna Beach named Lauren. Lauren's 
grandmother, Jean Meredith, is one of my dearest friends. About a month 
ago they discovered, as they were looking for a genetic defect in 
little Lauren, that she had an aneurysm in the middle of her brain, and 
it is right where the blood vessel comes to the optic nerve.
  So within 30 days they interviewed three doctors, one in the 
University of California in San Francisco, one in Stanford, and one in 
Arizona, who were specialists--yes, specialists in this area. Within 30 
days they scheduled an appointment, and they operated and went into her 
brain and sealed this aneurysm just 2 days ago.
  She did not have to go to a regional health alliance; she did not 
have to go before a regional health board or a national health board 
that sets global budgets; she did not have to queue up as they do in 
Canada or in Great Britain. She did not face a shortage of medicine 
because of price fixing; she did not have to be concerned about a 
shortage of specialists because everybody in Government here believes 
all people should be general practitioners.
  I would like to say something you cannot say in a public school. I 
would like to thank God for the miracle in saving Lauren's life. I 
would like to thank God for the greatest medical system in the world 
here in the United States. I would like to pray to God that he continue 
to give us his blessings and keep this Nation No. 1. Let us defeat the 
health care plan.

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