Michael Burgess: “But again, the biggest problem is access. If we drive our good physicians out of practice, if we prevent our best and…”

“But again, the biggest problem is access. If we drive our good physicians out of practice, if we prevent our best and brightest from entering the practice of medicine, and there is evidence that that is happening, I fail to see how we are furthering the cause of patient safety by keeping the best and brightest out of medicine. I fail to see how we are furthering the cause of patient safety by preventing smaller towns from having access to perhaps an anesthesiologist or perhaps a cardiologist simply because they cannot afford the liability premiums to have them there. {time} 2215 Now, the gentleman knows I have been around a while. I have had four children. When my first couple of children were born, a lot of the procedures that you OB-GYNs do on a regular basis. And I am glad to see we are joined by another one of our doctors here in Congress, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey). So we will just have this conversation be three-way. When my first two kids were born, I do not even know the terminology, but when they scanned the baby on your tummy, that was brand new. The piercing to check the fluid was brand new. They did not do that as a regular course. They did not run those tests as a regular course with my first two children. With my last two children they did, and it was a blessing for our family because we had a crisis pregnancy at one time. But my point now is that a doctor, because of the potential of the liability, is afraid not to do those procedures.…”