[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 49 (Wednesday, March 20, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H1242-H1243]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     HOUSE OF MEDICINE IS IN CRISIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Murphy) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MURPHY. Madam Speaker, the house of medicine is crumbling down.
  I have been a physician now for 35 years, and I spent 10 years prior 
to that training to become a surgeon. However, the house of medicine is 
in crisis.
  Since the pandemic, medicine, a truly objective science, has become 
political. It has become a field of activism, not advocacy: believe the 
science, and then don't trust the science.
  The record of preauthorizations now facing physicians and surgeons 
leads to poor patient care, burnout, early retirement, and massive 
administrative costs. Insurance companies are raking in record profits 
for their CEOs and shareholders by denying patients critical medicine 
or procedures and then not paying the doctors or hospitals, the ones 
who actually deliver the care.
  The cost of medications is skyrocketing. One primary reason is 
something called PBMs, pharmacy benefit managers, that most people 
don't know anything about. These things are extortion artists driven by 
insurance companies to steal money from pharmaceutical companies and, 
most importantly, patients.
  Madam Speaker, a pet peeve of mine is every other commercial seen on 
television is direct-to-consumer advertising. We are only one of two 
countries in the world, New Zealand being the other one, that allows 
this.
  I have never once in my 35 years in medicine prescribed a medicine 
that was because somebody advertised it on television. Now, we have 
hospital closures in every district because we are restricting access 
to care because Medicare and Medicaid do not pay the bills. Yet, we 
have Democrats screaming: Medicare for All. That absolutely would lower 
the standard of medicine.
  The express purpose of the ACA, ObamaCare, is to drive private 
practice out of business and for us all to be under one government-
payer system.
  What is happening? We are now employing more and more doctors and 
delivering a lower standard of care. These doctors, good people, really 
now have more ownership to a clock than their patient. We no longer 
have the work ethic that is seen in doctors as was seen before. It is 5 
o'clock. It is time to leave. There is an absolute loss of patient 
ownership.
  Madam Speaker, when I was seeing patients full time, if a physician 
called me to see a patient, my answer was: Do you want me to see them 
today or tomorrow?
  It was not: Send them to the emergency room.
  Now, it takes a year. I tried to get an appointment with a 
dermatologist for a patient. It took a year because of the severe 
doctor shortage. It is estimated that 40,000 to 120,000 more doctors 
are needed in a decade.
  Sadly enough, our medical schools, while they are increasing in 
numbers, are failing in the doctors that they produce. We now have more 
identity politics in medical schools than excellence in care. Activism 
in so many schools now is the oath. DEI is the oath to get into medical 
school. This needs to stop.
  It has now been shown that 63 percent of medical students now in 
medical school do not plan on practicing clinical medicine. There are 
medical students who come, take up a slot, and rarely practice. Why are 
medical schools allowing these individuals to get in?
  There are increasing numbers of fellowships after residency programs 
because we have work-hour limitations, and the students are just not 
well-trained to come out and practice.
  Burnout is at a record high, sadly, amongst physicians. I can 
understand that in a physician who has practiced until they are 65 or 
70, but now we have

[[Page H1243]]

millennials coming out of medical school that have high burnout rates.
  The AAMC, the Association of American Medical Colleges, is more 
concentrated on activism than excellence.
  With doctors' pay being cut yet again, what do Senate Democrats and 
House Democrats want to do in a time of a critical doctor shortage? Cut 
physician pay yet again. There has been a 26 percent cut over the last 
20 years. If you buy hammers for a store, how can you sell them at 40 
cents and expect to stay in business?
  I ran a surgical practice for many, many years. I knew where every 
paperclip went. You can't stay in business. We want to drive physicians 
out of private practice and into physician unemployment.
  My colleagues can't do this to medicine. Why has physician pay become 
a partisan issue? We are destroying the trust in the patient-doctor 
relationship. Physicians are leaving because they can't get paid and 
physician burnout.
  Madam Speaker, the house of medicine is in crisis.

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