Political Quotes

“I ask unanimous consent that a copy of my opening statement at the Senate Health Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: Access to Primary Care Mr. ALEXANDER. Dr. Lee Gross, of Florida testified last year at this Committee's fifth hearing on the cost of health care. He told us that, after seven years as a primary care doctor, he had an epiphany: too many government mandates and insurance companies were getting between doctors and patients and making primary care more expensive than it needed to be. So in 2010, Dr. Gross created one of the first Direct Primary Care practices. Instead of working with insurance companies and government programs, Dr. Gross' patients pay him a flat monthly fee directly: $60 a month per adult, $25 a month for one child, and $10 a month for each additional child. Dr. Gross is one of more than 300,000 primary care doctors in the United States who most of us go to see for day-to-day medical care--receiving vaccines like the flu shot, annual physicals, and help managing chronic conditions, like diabetes. It is also our entry point to coordinate additional medical care, if, for example, we need to get our hip replaced or an MRI to diagnose a problem. We heard from Dr. Brent James of the National Academies of Medicine at our second hearing that between 30 and 50 percent of what we spend on health care is unnecessary.…”