[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 18484]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     DEMOCRATIC HEALTH CARE REFORM

  (Mr. GINGREY of Georgia asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, one of the American people's 
biggest fears about the Democratic health care reform plan is the 
prospect of having some government bureaucrat stand between them and 
the doctors they trust. I've heard this message time and time again in 
townhall meetings, in letters and in phone calls from patients 
throughout this country.
  The House Democratic leadership has promised the American people that 
their fears about the bureaucrat-rationed care they will receive are 
unfounded, even while drafting a 1,000-page bill that creates this 
Comparative Effectiveness Council to decide which treatments will be 
covered.
  Late yesterday evening, I gave my colleagues a chance on the Energy 
and Commerce Committee to put their money where their mouths were by 
offering an amendment in the Energy and Commerce Committee that would 
simply bar Federal political appointees and bureaucrats from 
intervening in patient treatment decisions.
  An easy vote, Mr. Speaker. Who do you want making your health care 
decisions--your doctor or a government bureaucrat? However, every 
Democrat on the committee, save one, voted against this amendment.
  It's time for Congress to focus on strengthening the doctor-patient 
relationship and not the bureaucratic-patient relationship.

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