Chris Murphy: “The Federal spending for health care, it is so important to note that it is growing immensely, that it has grown and…”

“The Federal spending for health care, it is so important to note that it is growing immensely, that it has grown and continues to grow, that the numbers out there, about 45 percent of mandatory spending, is in the area of health care, and it is probably going to climb to 49. By 'mandatory' we mean spending and these are not necessarily the things we vote on and change every year but other outlays that take place. I want to point out as we are going towards this that as we are talking about such things that are brought up about liability, and tort reform issues are so important, that part of what we also have to pay attention to is patient safety. I would like to bring up a couple of points, and one of these is the issue, the Institute of Medicine in a landmark study in 1999 pointed out, this study was called 'To Err is Human,' stated that over 7,000 people die every year from medication errors alone with 44,000 to 98,000 deaths every year from medical errors in hospital practices.”