On the recordMarch 10, 2010
Practicing medicine, I've seen the cost of health care go up for everybody in this country because of government regulations. And let me just tell you about a couple of things; one is HIPAA that G.T. was just talking about. HIPAA was totally unneeded, totally unwarranted. It's a law passed by Congress. It's a regulatory burden that's been placed on the health care system. It has cost billions of dollars and has not paid for the first aspirin to treat the headaches it has created. Another bill that was passed, Henry Waxman, Ted Kennedy, Pete Stark, and others, passed a bill a couple of years ago called CLIA, the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act. I was practicing medicine in a small, rural community down in southwest Georgia. Prior to HIPAA, I had a fully automated lab in my office, quality controlled so that I knew that the results I got out of my lab were absolutely correct so I could give good, quality care to my patients. Congress passed CLIA, which shut my lab and every doctor's lab down in this country.
