[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 25236]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE 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, health care reform should not cost patients 
their health care. Unfortunately, several of the plans that have been 
passed by this House and are now being written in secret in the 
Speaker's Office with the White House will do just that.
  If it is cheaper for employers to drop employees from employer-
sponsored insurance and move them into a public option, employers will 
do just that.
  One-quarter of America's seniors who enjoy the added benefits of 
Medicare Advantage will lose their coverage. They get the things we 
want them to get: care coordination, disease management, medical homes, 
the things that we have told our seniors we will provide for them. And 
yet they will lose it under the health care reform. Millions more 
Americans will be moved into Medicaid.
  Patients whose doctors can no longer afford their liability insurance 
will lose their doctor if we don't pass some sort of meaningful 
liability reform. Not just another study, but meaningful liability 
reform like we passed in Texas in 2003, and the point has been proven 
over the years since that has happened.
  Portability should bring hundreds of more choices. We don't need a 
public option that will simply deliver a single additional choice.
  No cuts to Medicare. America's seniors have paid, and they deserve 
better.

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