[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 7589-7590]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        MEDICAL LIABILITY REFORM

  (Mr. BURGESS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, it was 13 months ago that we in this House 
passed meaningful medical liability reform. Our President, President 
Bush, has said that he will sign that legislation if we will just get 
it to him. And today it languishes on the other side of the Capitol. 
The Democratic candidate for President has already been on record as 
either voting ``no'' or has missed those votes on medical liability 
reform as they came up in the other body.
  Mr. Speaker, the cost of defensive medicine, not just the cost of 
liability insurance for doctors, but the cost of defensive medicine in 
this country in a 1996 Stanford University study was estimated to be 
$50 billion a year to the Medicare system, not the private health 
insurance system, but to the Medicare system alone.
  Mr. Speaker, we can no longer afford this. The whole problem with the 
uninsured and access to health care for all

[[Page 7590]]

Americans languishes because we have not taken conclusive action on 
medical liability reform. Again, let me stress we have a President who 
will sign that legislation into law. We have a candidate for President 
who is on record as voting ``no.''

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