[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 7477-7478]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2015
                           SENATE HEALTH WEEK

  Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of 
order for 5 minutes.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  There was no objection.
  Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to applaud the United States 
Senate for bringing to the floor this week three critical pieces of 
health care legislation. Unfortunately, only one of the three still 
stands a chance to see an actual up-or-down vote on the Senate floor.
  The rising cost of health care is an issue the Federal Government can 
no longer afford to ignore. The Department of Health and Human Services 
reports the cost of medical liability coverage and defensive medicine 
alone increases the amount taxpayers must pay for Medicaid, Medicare 
and other Federal health programs by as much as $56 billion a year. So 
much more than the increased cost of malpractice premiums is the 
astronomical cost of defensive medicine.
  Mr. Speaker, the Federal Government is seeing, as is every business 
and State legislature across America, their budget being crowded out by 
the skyrocketing costs of health care. We no longer have the luxury to 
pretend that this is not a national crisis, and it demands not only our 
full attention, but our resolve to find real solutions.
  Each and every year, the House of Representatives has tackled the 
tough issue of controlling the cost of health care. In this body, we 
have passed medical malpractice liability three times in the last 2 
years. Each and every time, that piece of legislation has fallen victim 
to the inaction of the Senate, and each year our health care crisis 
continues to grow.
  When someone we love brings a child into this world, we do not thank 
a trial lawyer for his hard work. When a family member is admitted to 
the emergency room after a heart attack, we do not feel relieved that 
there was a trial lawyer close by. And yet unless we do something soon 
to fix our medical liability system, we might discover it is far easier 
to find a lawyer in our community than to find a doctor.
  Guaranteeing all Americans access to quality health care should be 
what drives this debate. Just think: The best medical care in the world 
goes to waste if there are not doctors in our community to deliver it.
  There are many stories, Mr. Speaker, too numerous to tell, of quality 
physicians hanging up their stethoscopes to pursue other careers. When 
they are faced with soaring medical malpractice premiums and decreasing 
reimbursement, the best and the brightest are pursuing other career 
paths.
  Ask your neighborhood physician if they would encourage their 
children to follow in their footsteps and to become a doctor. All too 
often you would get a resounding ``no.''
  Unfortunately, there were not enough Senators yesterday who stood on 
the side of patients. There were not enough Senators yesterday who put 
quality health care above partisan politics. Once again, sensible 
medical malpractice reform legislation died in the Senate.
  This sensible legislation is based on a proven system that is saving 
health care in Texas. H.R. 5, the Health Act, common-sense reform 
legislation for which I was the lead sponsor last year in this House is 
also based on a successful reform model from the State of California, 
that was enacted in 1978, called MICRA.
  What we know, looking at these precedents is that reform works. Mr. 
Speaker, look at the medical malpractice premiums in 2003 for OB/GYNs 
in two different cities. In San Francisco, a city in a reform State, 
California, an average OB/GYN physician would pay $40,000 a year for an 
annual policy. However, an OB/GYN physician practicing in Chicago, 
Illinois, a nonreform State, would pay an annual premium of $139,000.
  This is not a situation that can be righted overnight, but there are 
sensible reforms that provide necessary steps to transform the American 
health care system, and medical malpractice reform is certainly one of 
them.
  Mr. Speaker, another good step towards transforming health care is 
Senate bill 1955, which the Senate is currently debating. The Health 
Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act is 
legislation that is similar to H.R. 525, the Small Business Health 
Fairness Act, that we passed in this body. This bill was introduced by 
Representative Sam Johnson, and as I say, it passed the House last 
year. This legislation will reduce the cost of health benefits for 
small business and the self-employed by establishing the new national 
Association Health Plans, or AHPs, as they are known.
  AHPs currently exist, but they are severely hampered by the 
administrative burden and the high cost of having to comply with 50 
different sets of State insurance laws and regulations. These barriers 
have made it virtually impossible to start new plans, and they have 
forced many of these plans to close, thus greatly limiting the 
availability of affordable health insurance to small businesses.
  Allowing an environment that will permit association or small 
business health plans to flourish will strengthen our health insurance 
markets by creating greater competition and more choices of health 
plans for small business. Greater competition will benefit consumers by 
driving down premiums and expanding access to coverage.
  H.R. 525 is just another example of House Republicans showing the 
American people they get it done when it comes to healthcare reform. In 
regards to decreasing the cost of health care, expanding private 
insurance coverage to all Americans, and increasing the quality of the 
healthcare delivery system; patients across our country deserve our 
undivided attention and it's time for the Senate to act, or stand 
accountable.

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