[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 20664]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                    BUREAUCRATS PRACTICING MEDICINE

  (Mr. GIBBONS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, obviously, I am no medical doctor. 
Therefore, I would never presume to know what medication, for example, 
would be better to treat the heart condition of a 72-year-old woman in 
Winnemucca, Nevada.
  Yet, the Gore plan thinks that Washington bureaucrats should know 
best which drug should or should not be used by my constituents 2,000 
miles away in Nevada. After all, that is what his Medicare 
Modernization Act calls for, 182 new mandates on prescription drug 
delivery, including a government formulary to cover prescriptions. If a 
drug is not listed in the Gore formulary, Medicare will not cover it, 
and a needy citizen, a senior, will not be able to obtain their life-
saving medication.
  Mr. Speaker, this same plan has failed miserably in Canada and 
Europe. My fellow citizens in Nevada and across America should not be 
denied access to the prescription drugs they need by Washington 
bureaucrats whose only medical credentials are that they have visited a 
doctor for their yearly physical.
  I yield back the Gore government-run prescription drug plan that has 
Washington, D.C. deciding which medicines should be in our cabinet.

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