Health Care Summit
Floor Speech
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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Thank you, Dr. Burgess. I really appreciate what my good friend from Texas is doing in terms of his leadership with the Congressional Health Care Caucus. It's refreshing in this Chamber to deal with folks who have the facts and have the experience to make informed decisions when it comes to such important topics like health care. I think of all the issues that come before this Chamber, there are probably few things as intimate to our individual lives as health care. And to observe this process over this past 14 months, where bills are written as I look at these bills, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 pages, which has been special agendas for, you know, just misled government-run health care, it's apparent to me that those who are writing those bills have very little experience, if any experience in health care. And so it's been a real privilege to be able to work with you and under your leadership to really look at the solutions that we need to have.
Now, as I travel around, and I did, my background was 28 years nonprofit community health care where I, in the hospitals, the health systems I come out of, we work very hard to be partners with our physicians.
And so what am I hearing? As I travel in my congressional district and I listen to folks throughout the country, I haven't met anyone that says, just don't do anything. The commitment is that, as I talk with folks, that they feel that they like the health system we have. Can we improve it? I think there's an acknowledgment that we can do that. And I've certainly spent my professional career serving my patients first as a therapist and a rehabilitation services manager and ultimately as a nursing home administrator. And looking at four dimensions of health care that we should always continue to strive to improve. Number one is cutting cost. And that's just not cost for a certain segment or a certain group, but cutting cost of health care for all Americans, which we're committed to that with the solutions you've talked about. It's about improving access, increasing access and improving quality and strengthening that decisionmaking relationship between the patient and the physician, not allowing government or a bureaucrat to be that wedge in between.
As I talk with people about health care, and I've been doing that since I came to Congress, that's what they're asking for. The people I talk to, they like the solutions. They like the bills that we've introduced as far back as last July that dealt with medical malpractice reform, tort reform that drives the cost of the health care up for all Americans through both the premiums for medical liability insurance that has to get absorbed into the cost of doing business, those premium costs get passed along as a part of the fees, and not just the premium fees, but then there's the cost of defensive medicine that occurs, with extra tests that are ordered, not so much maybe to serve our needs and whatever particular illness or disability we come to the doctor for, but to provide a record that shows that the physician has exhausted every possibility.
It's things like many of the solutions you talked about, allowing to purchase across State lines. It fascinates me that you can go to the Internet and you can go on a Web site, some of them got little critters like lizards on them, and you can purchase car insurance and get the best value, the best product for the best cost. You make that decision as an individual. And yet we are barred from purchasing health insurance across State lines.
In States like Pennsylvania, especially rural Pennsylvania where I'm from, if you have choices, you have just a couple of choices. Maybe if you're lucky, you have three choices to pick from. And a lot of people say, well, I want the insurance that you have as a Member of Congress. Well, I'm quick to tell people, I worked nonprofit community health care for hospitals for 30 years. I'm paying more today as a Member of Congress than what I ever paid for health care. But what I would like every American to have, certainly every constituent in my district that I have today are just lots of choices. And we do that by allowing purchasing across State lines, more competition. That's a good thing. Competition brings the cost down and raises quality. I don't care what you're purchasing, that's a principle that lasts.
Certainly, a formation of association health plans, and preexisting conditions, as you've talked about. I mean, those are all just a few of the different parts of the proposals that Republican Members have introduced and are pending bills that are right here that the Speaker could elevate to the floor at any moment so that we could actually take an up-or-down vote on these. I think the American people would vote yes. I see a thumbs-up from the American people as we talk about these different proposals.
Preexisting conditions, that's a tough issue, but we're addressing that within the proposals we have. Just because you're born with a preexisting condition or you happen to have the misfortune to develop a disease such as breast cancer or prostate cancer in the course of your life doesn't mean that you shouldn't be able to afford to be able to purchase affordable health insurance. We address that in the solutions that we put forward. I'm so very proud of all of the representatives from the Republican Caucus who were at the Blair House today. I thought they did an outstanding job of representing the American people and ideas that the American people are looking for.
You mentioned about workforce issues, and to me that was something that I came to Congress just looking as a crisis. Starting with rural America and underserved urban areas first, the baby boomer generation, my generation, we're beginning to retire in tremendous numbers. And in those areas where our physicians, our nurses, therapists, technicians are retiring, this payment system will get changed if we don't proactively address those workforce issues. If you don't have a physician in your community to provide services, you do not have access to quality care. And so because we've been misled with these 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 pages, all the attention's been drained in the wrong direction, we're missing the bigger issues that, frankly, we've been talking about. We've got bills that address some of the workforce issues, and so it's time to get beyond the misinformation and the misdirection that my Democratic colleagues have been putting together in these 1,000, 2,000-page bills, and get to the business of really addressing the real health care issues.
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