[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 38 (Tuesday, March 16, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H1469-H1470]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  (Mr. BARTLETT asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BARTLETT. Health care costs are increasing at two and three times 
the rate of inflation. Obviously, if this continues, it will bury us. 
So any health care reform needs to address health care costs. There are 
two major cost drivers in health care. This bill is silent on one and 
makes the other worse.
  The one that it is silent on is tort reform. Some people think the 
defensive medicine associated with the threat of malpractice suits may 
account for a fourth of all health care costs. This bill does nothing 
to address that. A second cost driver is administrative costs, which 
may again represent a fourth of all costs. This bill makes that worse 
by

[[Page H1470]]

proposing to give to poor people a policy and incur all of the health 
care costs associated with that policy.
  We need to give poor people health care. Give the doctor, the clinic, 
the hospital a tax credit for giving them their health care. Then we 
avoid all of the administrative costs associated with that. This bill 
fails on both of those counts.

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