Protecting Access to Healthcare Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HARRIS. Mr. Chairman, I think the gentleman from California just said what this is all about: The IPAB is about cutting expenditures for our seniors on Medicare when they need their health care.

The IPAB is no straw man. It's a health care policy bureaucrat's dream and a Medicare patient's nightmare. It's 15 bureaucrats--and the gentleman from California called it right--insurance company representatives, pharmacy company representatives, benefit managers, employers, all those people who really have the care of an individual patient in mind.

In fact, that rationing board limits the number of health care professionals who can serve to a minority, a minority of people, and then goes further and says, And, oh, by the way, they have to actually stop practicing health care for the 6 years they sit on the board. How close are they going to be to knowing what's going on in the care of a patient?

The gentleman from Iowa talked about the myth of defensive medicine. I want to ask anyone who cares to go in a labor and delivery suite and look what's happened to obstetric care, to our women in America over the past 40 years because we don't have effective tort reform.

I'm an obstetric anesthesiologist. I spent 30 years in a labor and delivery suite. In 1970, the cesarean section rate in this country was 5 percent. One in 20 women going to a hospital to have a baby would have a cesarean section. Last year it was 33 percent. I will tell you, not much has changed about childbirth in that time, but now a woman going into the hospital to have a baby has a one in three chance of having a cesarean section. Not only that, but 40 years ago--those of you who want to, ask people you know who delivered 40 years ago. Most obstetrics was delivered by a one- or two-person group where a woman got to know the obstetrician who was going to deliver her baby.

Go ask the folks in your district now what happens. You go into a group of about 10 or 12 people because they can't afford the malpractice insurance. They have to go into a big group so someone else can pay it. It's impersonal service. Go and try to find an obstetrician who is in their fifties or sixties and practicing obstetrics. They gave it up long ago because they can't afford the premiums. The most experienced obstetricians are no longer delivering care to American women.

The C-section rate is one in three, and a woman can't even expect to see her obstetrician every time she goes to those prenatal visits because there are eight or 10 in the group, and they all have to have a chance to see that patient. That's what the lack of tort reform has done to the delivery of care to women in this country.

We need to pass this bill and pass it now.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source