Health Care

Floor Speech

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor as a physician who has practiced orthopedic surgery in Casper, WY, for 25 years.

I come to offer a second opinion on the health care bill that was recently passed and signed into law. My opinion on this bill is very different than what I have heard from the administration, from the Speaker of the House, and from the majority leader because my opinion is that this bill--now law--is going to be bad for patients, bad for patients all around this country, bad for health care providers: The doctors, the nurses, the folks who work in our hospitals, the therapists. I believe it is going to be bad for the taxpayers--people who are going to be left with this large bill to pay for a bill that is not to save a health care system but to create new entitlements and new obligations.

As I have looked at this, it struck me last week when they were having the debate in England. They are having an election, and the candidates for Prime Minister were having a debate. It was the first nationally televised debate ever in England in an election. They compared it to the Kennedy-Nixon debate when people were up there debating and discussing.

The question presented to the Prime Minister of England was: What about the national health service? Those of us on my side of the aisle have been very concerned that with this new law we are going to be seeing a nationalization of our health care in a way like we are seeing in other countries, whether it is Canada, whether it is England--a system I think is not what the American people want.

But I wish to read to you from the transcript of the debate because they asked the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, about the National Health Service. He said:

My priorities for the health service are that we give people personal guarantees--

So this is what he is promising--

that every individual patient will know they will get a cancer specialist seen within two weeks if [they] need it. They'll get a diagnostic test within one week, and the results to them. They will also be able to know that their operation--

So now they know they have cancer--

will be in 18 weeks if you're any patient in need of an operation.

So here you are, you have had your opportunity to see a cancer doctor, you have had your test, you have your diagnosis. What is the best the people of England are being promised by their Prime Minister? The best they can expect is to have an operation within 18 weeks.

The question here is, How many Americans, how many Members of this body, how many people across this country are going to see that as satisfactory? Because that is where we are heading with this health care bill that is now signed into law. How many people want that: You will have your operation in 18 weeks.

So here you are, if you are diagnosed next week in the United States--if this were the situation they have now in Britain--you would be looking at having your operation in September. See you in September. Come back for your operation. Now you can worry about it. You can worry about your diagnosis of cancer the rest of April, all of May, all of June, all of July, all of August. That is what the candidate for Prime Minister and the current Prime Minister of England is promising the people of that country with their national health system--a system that is the model of many people on the other side of the aisle of what they want American medicine to be like.

This story, once again, demonstrates that coverage does not equal care. Because everyone in Britain has coverage, but they sure cannot get care. Then you ask yourself: Does it truly matter? Does 4 1/2 months--18 weeks--of waiting for your cancer surgery truly matter? There is not just the emotional worry of: Is that cancer spreading within my body? Should I leave the county of England and go to the United States where I can get immediate care? You have to worry because the statistics back up the fact that the care in the United States is much better than it is in England--not that the doctors are any better here than they are in England but that the timing of when you can receive the care from those qualified professionals is much better in the United States.

So if you take a look at the statistics behind this from the researchers who look at this--and I will just go through it because my wife is a breast cancer survivor. She has had a series of three operations. She has been through chemotherapy twice, and she is now surviving 6 years after her diagnosis. I am grateful she was treated in the United States, where the day after the diagnosis was made they wanted to get in immediately to do the operation.

So let me tell you, it says that today the United States leads the world in treating cancer. These are scientific studies. For breast cancer, for instance, the survival rate, after 5 years, among American woman--a woman who is diagnosed in the United States with breast cancer and is treated--83 percent are still alive 5 years later. For the women in Britain, 69 percent. Where do you want to get your care? The bigger question is, When do you want to get your care?

For men with prostate cancer, the survival rate is 92 percent in the United States; 74 percent in France; 51 percent in Britain. American men and women are more than 35 percent more likely to survive colon cancer than their British counterparts.

In an article from the August 2008 edition of Lancet Oncology, the cancer Journal there, the United States is No. 1 again. In almost every category, Americans survive cancer at higher rates than patients in other developed countries. American cancer patients have a higher survival rate for every major form of cancer than patients in Canada and Britain.

American women have a 35-percent better chance of surviving colon cancer than British women. American men have an 80-percent better survival rate for prostate cancer. American survival rates are also better than survival rates in France.

You can go on and on with this, but it is evidently clear--evidently clear--that the timing on when one gets their care is critical.

It is interesting to me that just this week--just this very week--the President made his nomination for a new Director of the portion of the Health and Human Services Department that deals with Medicare and Medicaid. The President has been in office for 15 months. We have had a debate and discussion in this body for almost all that time on health care. In this body, the Democrats have voted to cut Medicare by $500 billion from our seniors who desperately depend upon Medicare.

Why is it the President has waited 15 months to finally nominate someone to be the head of the part of government that oversees Medicare and Medicaid? The President has put 15 million to 16 million more people on Medicaid, has cut Medicare, has told us we can trust him on this. Yet he would not put somebody up to go through the confirmation process to head Medicare and Medicaid? Why? Because, in my opinion, he did not want anybody to answer the questions because they are tough questions. Why wouldn't you nominate somebody for all that time and leave the post open, essentially, and not have somebody to come to Congress and say what are the implications to the American people of dumping another 16 million people onto Medicaid, of cutting $500 billion from Medicare?

Well, because the person he has put in has a long history of a love of rationing care. It is a Dr. Donald Berwick. He has a history of support for government rationing of government health care resources on the grounds of cost--not on the grounds of quality, not on the grounds of survivability but on the grounds of cost.

He has said, as recently as last June:

The decision is not whether or not we will ration care--the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.

So here we are, the newly nominated person has basically said: I am going into this to ration care. He is a big supporter of what they have going on in Britain right now. In Britain, they call it NICE. It stands for National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. Well, this is what Dr. Berwick has said about it. He said:

Those organizations are functioning very well and are well respected by clinicians, and they are making their populations healthier and better off.

Well, let me tell you what a London doctor, a colon cancer specialist, had to say. This doctor said:

A lot of my colleagues also face pressure from managers not to tell patients about new drugs.

He said:

There is nothing in writing, but telling patients opens up a Pandora's box for health services trying to contain costs.

He further went on--this now being again Dr. Berwick saying about this British group:

NICE is an extremely effective and conscientious, valuable and--importantly--knowledge-building system.

What did the BBC, the British broadcast group, say? They say:

Doctors are keeping cancer patients in the dark about expensive new drugs that could extend their lives ..... A quarter of the specialists--

one in four specialists--

polled by Myeloma UK said they hid facts about treatments for bone marrow cancer that may be difficult to obtain from the National Health Service. Doctors said they did not want to ``distress, upset, or confuse'' patients if drugs had not yet been approved by the National Health Service drugs watchdog NICE.

So when we take a look at the British health care system: 18 weeks of a wait--which is the promise from the Prime Minister in the debate last week--18 weeks from when you are diagnosed with cancer until you have your operation. That is their aspirational goal. It makes you wonder what it is now. It has to be a lot longer than 18 weeks. So I would tell my colleagues it is no surprise that in the latest polls that were out this morning, the Quinnipiac poll, polling done this past week: Do you support passage of the health care reform bill? Less than 4 in 10 Americans, only 39 percent, approve of what this body crammed down the throats of the American people, whereas over half of all Americans disapprove of what this administration--this President, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and this Congress--has now forced upon the American people.

The American people have great cause to worry about what they are going to face in their health care, in their health care decisions; if they are going to be able to keep the doctor they like seeing. Those are the questions, and those are the concerns of the American people. My colleagues know my second opinion on the health care bill that we were told by Nancy Pelosi: You have to pass it before you get to find out what is in it.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Tennessee.

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