Michael Burgess: “it was 13 months ago that we in this House passed meaningful medical liability reform. Our President, President Bush…”

“it was 13 months ago that we in this House passed meaningful medical liability reform. Our President, President Bush, has said that he will sign that legislation if we will just get it to him. And today it languishes on the other side of the Capitol. The Democratic candidate for President has already been on record as either voting ``no'' or has missed those votes on medical liability reform as they came up in the other body. Mr. Speaker, the cost of defensive medicine, not just the cost of liability insurance for doctors, but the cost of defensive medicine in this country in a 1996 Stanford University study was estimated to be $50 billion a year to the Medicare system, not the private health insurance system, but to the Medicare system alone. Mr. Speaker, we can no longer afford this. The whole problem with the uninsured and access to health care for all Americans languishes because we have not taken conclusive action on medical liability reform. Again, let me stress we have a President who will sign that legislation into law. We have a candidate for President who is on record as voting ``no.''”