On the recordMarch 21, 2010
My wife has been a family doctor for 20 years and comes home every single night telling me stories about her patients who have paid their premiums, but when they get sick and need coverage, they're denied the care by the same companies who are trying to kill this legislation here today. I have heard her on the phone fighting those very insurance company executives to let her practice medicine the way she was trained at the University of California at Davis Medical School. What a concept, to have your doctor write your prescription, not someone on the other end of an insurance company authorization line. This is not socialized medicine. Far from it. We are making sure that the doctor is making the decision, not the insurance company. Mr. Speaker, my brother runs a company, a business, a small business that has been in my family for 50 years. Two weeks ago he was told his premiums are going up by 75 percent. To add insult to injury, on that very day, my sister-in-law had had knee replacement surgery and the doctor thought she needed a few extra days in the hospital because they were afraid that she might get blood clots. She was told by her insurance company they couldn't have that time initially because it was too expensive. There was a little girl in my hometown who had leukemia. The insurance company told her she couldn't go to the hospital with the best success rate to fix her disease.
