John Ensign: “this next amendment I am offering comes once again from personal experience. I have a very close friend, Dr. Tony Alamo.…”

“this next amendment I am offering comes once again from personal experience. I have a very close friend, Dr. Tony Alamo. He is a few years younger than me, and is an internist in Las Vegas. Our parents have known each other for a long time. He graduated from USC medical school. I don't know that I have ever seen anybody work harder. Internists today don't make nearly the money that a lot of surgical specialists make, but the compassion that they have for their patients is just incredible. I remember a few years ago talking to him and what he had to tell me was amazing. As a practicing veterinarian, we get to choose who we take, who we don't take, and when they come into our offices. But as a physician, when he happens to be there treating another patient, if somebody comes in and he happens to be the attending physician, he has to treat that person, regardless of whether they have insurance or no insurance, can pay or cannot pay. When he takes that person on as a patient, he cannot get rid of that patient. So he has to continue through the course of the disease, if he is in the hospital, has a heart condition, he has to continue regardless of whether he gets reimbursed or not. The purpose of my amendment is to say we want them to continue that kind of care, but if out of the goodness of their heart they are treating for free, we just want to eliminate the possibility that they can be sued for such a matter.”