Michael Burgess: “In 1965, the major health care expenditures that a senior might face would be the expense of a surgery or, if they got…”

“In 1965, the major health care expenditures that a senior might face would be the expense of a surgery or, if they got pneumonia and were hospitalized for 7 to 10 days, however long the drug therapy would run, and Medicare was put in place to protect the family from those very serious expenditures. Of course, the fact remains that nowadays, most of us are not going to die of our acute illnesses. We are going to live with chronic conditions and hopefully live with them for a long time, and that requires the interplay of prescription drugs. One other thing I feel honor bound to mention is the issue of medical liability reform which we took up in this House 2 months ago, and I thought did a masterful job of getting a good bill out of this House, and off and on its way. I would implore members of the other body to look seriously at taking up this important legislation before much more time goes by because, as my colleagues know and as I know, the cost of defensive medicine really drives up the medical expenditures, not just for Medicare, but for private insurers as well, and we can no longer afford that type of very expensive defensive medicine in this country.”