[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 108 (Friday, July 17, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H8345]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  PROBLEMS WITH UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. I want my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, to listen 
to what happens when you have socialized medicine. This is a Canadian 
story I'm going to tell you about. In fact, there is more than one.
  This is from Shona Holmes. She is a Canadian. She says that after 
suffering from crushing headaches and vision problems, she was 
diagnosed with a brain tumor 4 years ago. She was told if it wasn't 
removed, she could go blind or even die.
  American doctors at the Mayo Clinic said to me, you have a brain 
tumor pressing on your optic chasm, and it needs to come out 
immediately. Holmes was told by her doctor in Canada that she had to 
wait 4 months before she could see an endocrinologist and 6 months for 
a neurologist.
  She is a Canadian, and she says that the doctors at the Mayo Clinic 
where she turned to got to her right away because they couldn't get to 
her fast enough in Canada. She ended up having to pay about $100,000 
because they couldn't take care of the problem in Canada, as that 
health care system was supposed to do. She and her husband were forced 
to put a second mortgage on their home and borrow money from family and 
friends.
  Here is another story: a prime example is the Kingston General 
Hospital in Ontario where they have staggering delays. Senator 
McConnell in the other body claims that on average there is a 340-day 
wait for knee replacements and a 196-day wait for hip replacements. The 
chief of staff of that hospital says, In our Canada health care system, 
we are looking at what we have to do to prioritize patients. They are 
on somebody's waiting list if they have a problem. They have to wait.
  Another Canadian, Rick Hession, has a heart condition that could 
cause a stroke. But he has a 3-month or more wait for an operation to 
correct it.
  Socialized medicine, government-controlled health care, does not 
work. It costs a lot of money, you have to wait, and they ration care. 
This is the program that the Democrats are promising. And all of these 
white areas are new agencies of government that you're going to have to 
go through to get your health care.
  It is going to cost between $1 trillion and $3 trillion over the next 
decade. That is money we don't have, money we are going to have to 
print or borrow. It is going to cause inflation.
  So we not only have a health care problem we are going to create that 
will be much worse than anything we face today, something that is going 
to be equivalent to what they are doing in Canada and England, which 
does not provide care for those people, but it rations care and it 
costs through the nose.
  The American people need to know these facts. And my colleagues on 
the Democrat side are trying to rush this through before the August 
recess so the American people won't know what all this means. I think 
it is a tragedy. We need more time so the American people can realize 
what they are going to have to experience if we get a socialized, 
Canadian-style health care program.

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