[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 7 (Thursday, January 21, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E66-E67]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTHCARE DEBATE

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR.

                              of tennessee

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, January 21, 2010

  Mr. DUNCAN. Madam Speaker, I hope that everyone who is concerned 
about the current healthcare debate will read the following two 
insertions that I would like to call to the attention of my colleagues 
and other readers of the Record.
  First, this letter from Dr. Douglas Mackenzie, a surgeon from Santa 
Barbara, California.
  Second, this article from Investor's Business Daily by Tevi Troy, a 
Fellow at Hudson Institute, and former Deputy Secretary of Health and 
Human Services, and Jeffery Anderson, a Senior Fellow in healthcare 
studies at Pacific Research Institute.

                 How to Solve Healthcare Accountability

       ``Decades of data confirm the simple truth: If we want to 
     lower health costs, we need to put consumers back in charge.

[[Page E67]]

       ``Many people now feel like second-class citizens when they 
     enter the doctor's office. That's because everyone in the 
     office knows that the patient isn't really the payer--the 
     patient doesn't hold the purse strings.
       ``The greater the percentage of medical costs that patients 
     pay to their insurance company in premiums, the more insurers 
     are in charge.
       ``The greater the percentage that patients instead pay 
     directly to their doctor out-of-pocket, the patients are in 
     charge.
       ``Whether it's television, computers or Lasik eye surgery, 
     when consumers are in charge, prices stay in check. In 1970, 
     consumers paid for 62% for all privately purchased healthcare 
     out-of-pocket. Today, that percentage is just 26%.
       ``Consumers are paying less directly to doctors, but 
     they're paying four times as much overall--to insurers or the 
     IRS.
       ``Only two basic ways exist to cut costs: putting consumers 
     in charge and letting them pursue value; putting the 
     government in charge and letting it ration care.
       ``So, how do we put consumers back in charge? First, we 
     need to reject the current bills in Congress, which would 
     restrict consumer choice substantially. Then we need to 
     empower consumers in three key ways:
       1. End the unfair tax on the uninsured. We should give tax 
     credits to individuals and families that are uninsured or 
     self-insured, thereby putting them on the same ground as 
     those with employer-sponsored insurance.
       2. Make it easer for consumers to see prices.
       3. Encourage consumer-driven insurance models to give 
     consumers skin in the game.
       Intel offers a plan in which it pays all insurance 
     premiums, while its employees pay all health costs up to an 
     annual deductible of about $2,500 for families--with certain 
     preventive care provided for free.
       ``Intel employees deposit part of their income into a 
     health savings account tax-free, just like any income that's 
     used to pay for insurance premiums is tax-free.
       ``These consumers have a stronger incentive to shop for 
     value--as everything they spend up to $2,500 comes from their 
     own pockets, and everything they save is theirs to keep. 
     Whole Foods offers a comparable plan.
       ``Across nearly 40 years, the costs of government-run 
     medical care have risen far more, per patient, than the costs 
     of privately purchased care. As consumers' opportunities and 
     incentives to purse value have diminished, costs have 
     skyrocket''
       Source: Tevi Troy (2007-09 Deputy Secretary of Health and 
     Human Services and now a Fellow at Hudson Institute) and 
     Jeffrey Anderson (Senior Fellow in healthcare studies at 
     Pacific Research Institute), Investor's Business Daily.

    Government Is the Cause of Healthcare Problems--Not the Solution

       ``I would submit that we do not have a healthcare problem 
     in this country, but we do most definitely have a government 
     problem in this country.''
       ``Our healthcare system is a mess, but few understand why, 
     and most tacitly accept the notion that government can or 
     must provide the solutions. But it needs to be recognized 
     that government encroachment into healthcare over the decades 
     was the key ingredient in creating the bureaucratic, 
     inefficient morass that is our current system.
       ``The logical answer, once this is appreciated, is not to 
     allow the government to fix what it broke in the first place! 
     The answer is to strive to do everything possible toward the 
     goal of getting government out of healthcare completely. This 
     means less regulation, not more. This means less government/
     corporate cooperation (collusion), not more. Lobbying for 
     regulations favorable to one group over another is a toxic 
     concept, based on the immorality of the method itself. Yes, I 
     know that this is the `way government works' nowadays, and I 
     hear the arguments that we need to have a `seat at the 
     table,' but that doesn't make it any less wrong''


                     ``HEALTHCARE IS NOT A RIGHT''

       ``We have gotten to the point where we are ready to hand 
     over the last bit of control of our healthcare system to 
     government bureaucrats. . . . Is it really so shocking to ask 
     the question: `Why is the government involved in my 
     healthcare at all?' Maybe it's shocking to some state 
     `Healthcare is not a right.' But it's only shocking to 
     someone with no understanding of natural law, rights versus 
     privileges, or why a socialistic system, healthcare or 
     otherwise, is profoundly immoral. The wealthy will always 
     find a way to skirt such a system while the shrinking middle 
     class pays for it, and the poor, the ones the system claims 
     to benefit, suffer the most . . .


                      ADVICE TO ORGANIZED DOCTORS

       Recommend to your members that if they are one of the 17% 
     of American physicians that remain members of the AMA, get 
     out. Let's make it even clearer that the AMA doesn't 
     represent American physicians and exists solely to feed off 
     its lucrative CPT franchise (merely one example of corporate/
     government collusion which poisons the system and raises 
     costs).
       Learn what's really going on with healthcare in America. A 
     good place to start is the Association of American Physicians 
     and Surgeons and its special project website, 
     www.takebackmedicine.com.
 Opt out of Medicare immediately. Continue to care for 
     seniors, as most physician who have opted out do, through 
     private contracts with reasonable fees. Refuse to be part of 
     a corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy that threatens its 
     physicians with draconian punishments and fines while paying 
     them a pittance for the privilege. Imagine the signal that 
     would send if a large organization of physicians like yours 
     had the backbone to recommend this. It would force Reid and 
     Pelosi to tender the idea of forced physician labor. That 
     would likely wake up physicians, indeed the whole of the 
     American people, to just how much power the government 
     craves.
       It is only a true free market in healthcare which will 
     lower costs for all patients, increase availability of care, 
     and spur innovation. Most, unfortunately, have no idea what a 
     true free market looks like. It's not what we have now, and 
     certainly not what is on the horizon.
           Sincerely,
     Douglas J. Mackenzie, M.D., F.A.C.S.

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