[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 41 (Friday, March 19, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H1718-H1719]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  DOCTORS TELL CONGRESS TO VOTE ``NO''

  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. Well, here we are, folks, Friday night. People 
are going to the movies, having dinner with their kids and grandkids, 
and we're here in the Capitol of the United States trying to screw up 
everybody's life.
  Let me just give you a little information we found today. Mr. 
Speaker, 46 percent of the primary care doctors in this country said if 
this bill passes, they'll leave medicine. Now think about that. Let's 
just say that that's off by 75 percent. Let's say only a fourth of that 
happens, and we only have, say, 10 or 15 percent of the doctors leave 
primary care because of this bill. What do you think that's going to do 
to the patients? We're going to have more patients, according to this 
bill, because they're going to bring in more people, maybe some illegal 
aliens and people that aren't completely covered right now. So we're 
going to have fewer doctors and more patients.
  What is that going to result in? It's going to result in what we've 
all been talking about for a long time, and that is rationing of health 
care because you won't be able to take care of all these people. You 
have to pick and choose. It's going to cost more, and there's going to 
be long waiting lines like they have in other countries that have 
socialized medicine. I just can't hardly believe that we're doing this.
  You know, in Massachusetts, today I watched on television the 
Democrat treasurer of Massachusetts said on television just a couple of 
hours ago that their State is going to go bankrupt because of their 
public health program, which parallels what they want to do here in 
Washington. I mean, think about that. Massachusetts has a system like 
this. Their State treasurer--not a Republican, a Democrat--says that 
they're going bankrupt because of it. And yet we're doing the same 
thing only more in spades right here in the Congress of the United 
States, and we're not hearing as much about it as we should.
  Now, I want to real quickly read to you just to let you know what the 
doctors think. We have some doctors who are going to be talking here 
tonight, some very eminent doctors. The State medical associations that 
are opposed to this: the States of Alabama, Delaware, District of 
Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, New Jersey, 
Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, the American Academy of Dermatology, 
American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, American 
Academy of Ophthalmology. It just goes on and on and on. There's 
probably 100 of them here. And they're not listening to these people. 
They're telling us in Congress that people are going to leave the 
practice of medicine.

[[Page H1719]]

  Now, the other thing that they're not talking about is we don't have 
tort reform. You know, doctors have to spend an awful lot of money 
protecting themselves against lawsuits. So we've said in our bill that 
we really need tort reform. Well, they don't have that. It's not going 
to be in their bill. So doctors are going to be still unprotected as 
far as liability suits are concerned. That's another reason why 46 
percent of the doctors say they're going to leave primary care. Why 
wouldn't you? You've got some money in the bank that you've worked your 
whole life to gain and achieve and you know that one lawsuit will wipe 
you out, and there's no protection at all in these health care plans 
they're going to ram through, why would you risk it? Why would you risk 
lose you are your home and your business and everything that you've 
worked your life to save? You wouldn't. And so it might be better to go 
out and do something else. Take the money that you've saved and go into 
maybe some kind of a private practice that doesn't require this kind of 
a risk.
  So I would just like to say to my colleagues back in their offices 
who probably aren't listening to too much tonight--they're fighting to 
try to get that last vote or two to make sure they can get this thing 
passed--think about what you're doing to America. Think about what 
you're doing to the future generations that are going to be paying for 
this. We won't be paying for all of it. Trillions and trillions of 
dollars that we don't have are going to be spent. They're going to have 
to print that money. Our kids are going to be the ones who are going to 
have to pay it back through inflation and higher taxes. It's just a 
terrible, terrible legacy to leave to them.
  So to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who may be in 
their offices, Mr. Speaker, listening to what we're talking about 
tonight, I hope they'll give this a lot of thought, especially if they 
haven't made up their minds. Don't leave this kind of legacy to the 
future generations, and listen to what's going on in Massachusetts that 
has a similar program. They're going bankrupt up there because of it. 
And we're going to put a program into place that's going to run doctors 
out of the business and possibly bankrupt America and run inflation 
through the roof because we're going to be spending money we don't have 
so they'll have to print it and raising taxes? It just doesn't make any 
sense.
  The last thing I'll say is that the vast majority of the American 
people in addition to the doctors, Mr. Speaker, don't want this. So 
listen to your constituents before you go running off a cliff and 
killing yourselves politically.

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