[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 182 (Monday, December 7, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H13524]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                HARVARD MED DEAN FAILS HEALTH CARE BILL

  (Mr. SMITH of Texas asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, here is what Jeffrey Flier, dean of 
Harvard Medical School, has to say about the administration's health 
care bill: ``. . . The people who favor the legislation are engaged in 
collective denial.
  ``Speeches and news reports can lead you to believe that proposed 
congressional legislation would tackle the problems of cost, access and 
quality. But that's not true.
  ``. . . There are no provisions to substantially control the growth 
of costs or raise the quality of care. So the overall effort will fail 
to qualify as reform.
  ``Whatever its shape, the final legislation that will emerge from 
Congress will markedly accelerate national health care spending rather 
than restrain it . . . The legislation would do little or nothing to 
improve quality or change health care's dysfunctional delivery system.
  ``Worse, currently proposed Federal legislation would undermine any 
potential for real innovation in insurance and the provision of care.''
  Dean Flier has good advice: Congress should start over and do it 
right.

                          ____________________