[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 16]
[House]
[Page 21896]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              TORT REFORM

  (Mr. COFFMAN of Colorado asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. COFFMAN of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, the President's mention of a 
tort reform demonstration project in his speech to Congress last week 
was a red herring. By putting Secretary Sebelius in charge of 
evaluating a tort reform demonstration project, the President has left 
tort reform to the former executive director and chief lobbyist for the 
Kansas Trial Lawyers Association. The President may have well just 
said, ``We need to protect the hen house, so I'm appointing the fox to 
evaluate security.''
  Democrats deride the status quo in health care, waving their fingers 
and blaming special interests, but their rhetoric fails to meet 
reality. In a moment of extreme candor, Howard Dean, the former DNC 
chairman, said, The reason why tort reform is not in the bill is 
because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial 
lawyers, and that is the plain and simple truth.
  Talk about beholding the special interests.
  Mr. Speaker, if Democrats were serious about reducing costs and about 
making health care more affordable without bankrupting our country, 
they would embrace tort reform. The fact is they just aren't.

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