[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 70 (Tuesday, May 18, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H3098]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              IN SUPPORT OF MAJOR MEDICAL LIABILITY REFORM

  (Mr. BURGESS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, this week is a good week. The American 
College of Surgeons is in town visiting us in our offices on Capitol 
Hill, and so it is of some note that we passed again a measure for 
liability reform last week in this House. We did that a year ago and 
unfortunately got stalled over somewhere by the rotunda. I hope this 
year it can indeed go forward because, Mr. Speaker, it is so important 
for people to realize and for my friends at the American College of 
Surgeons to realize that right now we have got a President who will 
sign major medical liability reform. We have a candidate running for 
that office who has either voted ``no'' or been absent when that vote 
has been taken in the other body.
  We can no longer afford the crippling costs of defensive medicine 
that are layered upon our existing health care system. Mr. Speaker, it 
is time for Americans to sit up and take notice of this problem. Our 
professional people and our patients are indeed in peril.

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