Tom Coburn: “America spends 16 percent of its gross domestic product on health care, and that doesn't take into account any research…”

“America spends 16 percent of its gross domestic product on health care, and that doesn't take into account any research and development. It is important to know that, through the private sector, M.D. Anderson, in Texas, spends more on research than the entire country of Canada. We don't want to disrupt that. So keeping these children in a private program with their parents, with the continuity of care, I can tell you that as a practicing physician, when you have one child go one place and one child going somewhere else, and a parent going somewhere else, the ability to access health care declines. So I hope the chairman will consider accepting this and look on it favorably. We will actually make the Baucus-Grassley bill much more effective, much like we are seeing in Oregon, which has been effective with children staying on the same health care with their parents.”