U.S. Rep. Ron Paul | physician |
physician
Birth Defects Prevention Act
10 March 1998 1998 Ron Paul 24:2
For most of the past thirty years, I have worked as physician specializing in obstetrics. In so doing, I delivered more than 4,000 infants. Despite what I believe to be a somewhat unique insight on the topic of birth defect prevention, today, I address the house as a Congressman rather than as a physician.
physician
Clean Needles And Risky Behavior
29 April 1998 1998 Ron Paul 40:2
As a physician, I would have to agree with the opposition that a clean needle certainly is better than a dirty needle. I do not think there is a question about that. But I do believe that there is a message sent that if we provide free needles to do something that we are condoning or encouraging it. But there is also a strong moral as well as an economic argument against this.
physician
Federal War On Drugs Bad Idea
5 May 1998 1998 Ron Paul 45:3
I have taken this time so I would have adequate time to explain my position and why I oppose this bill. Obviously, this country is facing a serious problem with drugs. As a physician, I can attest to it. We have major problems in this country, something should be done. But I thought it was necessary to take some time to point out that what we have done for 20 to 25 years has not been all that good. And I see this resolution as an endorsement of the status quo, not an introduction of one single new idea about how to approach this problem. And it is for this reason that I have taken this time to try to get people to think about maybe an alternative some day that we might look at, because so far the spending of the money and the abuse of our civil liberties that has occurred with the war on drugs has not accomplished a whole lot.
physician
Federal War On Drugs Bad Idea
5 May 1998 1998 Ron Paul 45:8
It is estimated that we have spent over $200 billion in the last 25 years fighting drugs. And yet it is the same old thing again. Play on the emotions of the people, condemn drug usage, which I do. As I said as a physician, I know they are horrible. But as a politician and somebody in the legislature, we should think about the efficiency and the effectiveness of our laws.
physician
Wasting Money On War On Drugs
5 May 1998 1998 Ron Paul 46:6
Obviously I am concerned. I have five children, and I have 13 grandchildren. I am a physician. I have a great deal of concern. But I have also been involved and I have seen people who have suffered, and, therefore, I have probably a slightly different approach to the problem.
physician
Wasting Money On War On Drugs
5 May 1998 1998 Ron Paul 46:17
In 1974, Switzerland passed a law that said that the doctor could prescribe medication for addicts. I, as a physician, if an addict comes into my office and I agree to give him drugs which would support his habit, because I figure for him to go out on the street and shoot somebody for it is a little worse than me trying to talk him into a program by giving him drugs for a while, I am a criminal. I am a criminal today if I decide that somebody should use or could use marijuana if they are dying with cancer or AIDS and they are dying of malnutrition because they cannot eat. There should be a little bit of compassion in this movement.
physician
The Freedom And Privacy Restoration Act
15 July 1998 1998 Ron Paul 76:2
If this scheme is not stopped, no American will be able to get a job; open a bank account; apply for Social Security or Medicare; exercise their Second Amendment rights; or even take an airplane flight unless they can produce a state drivers’ license, or its equivalent, that conforms to federal specifications. Under the 1996 Kennedy-Kassebaum health care reform law, Americans may even be forced to present a federally-approved drivers’ license before consulting their physicians for medical treatment!
physician
The Patient Privacy Act
21 July 1998 1998 Ron Paul 82:2
As an OB/GYN with more than 30 years experience in private practice, I know better than most the importance of preserving the sanctity of the physician-patient relationship. Oftentimes, effective treatment depends on a patient’s ability to place absolute trust in his or her doctor. What will happen to that trust when patients know that any and all information given their doctor will be placed in a data base accessible by anyone who knows the patient’s “unique personal identifier?”
physician
The Patient Privacy Act
21 July 1998 1998 Ron Paul 82:4
Mr. Speaker, the Clinton administration has even come out in favor of allowing law enforcement officials access to health care information, in complete disregard of the fifth amendment. It is bitterly ironic that the same administration that has proven so inventive at protecting its privacy has so little respect for physician-patient confidentiality.
physician
Patient Protection Act of 1998
24 July 1998 1998 Ron Paul 84:2
Earlier this week I introduced legislation, the Patient Privacy Act (H.R. 4281), to repeal those sections of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 that authorized the creation of a national medical ID. I believe that the increasing trend toward allowing the federal government to track Americans through national ID cards and numbers represents one of the most serious threats to liberty we are facing. The scheme to create a national medical ID to enter each person’s medical history into a national data base not only threatens civil liberties but it undermines the physician-patient relationship, the cornerstone of good medical practice. Oftentimes, effective treatment depends on a patient’s ability to place absolute trust in his or her doctor, a trust that would be severely eroded if the patient knew that any and all information given their doctor could be placed in a data base accessible by anyone who knows the patient’s “unique personal identifier.”
physician
Patient Protection Act of 1998
24 July 1998 1998 Ron Paul 84:4
Mr. Speaker, I am also pleased that Congress is addressing the subject of health care in America, for the American health care system does need reform. Too many Americans lack access to quality health care while millions more find their access to medical care blocked by a “gatekeeper,” an employee of an insurance company or a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) who has the authority to overrule the treatment decisions of physicians!
physician
Patient Protection Act of 1998
24 July 1998 1998 Ron Paul 84:11
However, as much as I support H.R. 4250’s expansion of MSA’s, I equally object to those portions of the bill placing new federal standards on employer offered health care plans. Proponents of these standards claim that they will not raise cost by more than a small percentage point. However, even an increase of a small percentage point could force many marginal small businesses to stop offering health care for their employees, thus causing millions of Americans to lose their health insurance. This will then lead to a new round of government intervention. Unlike Medical Savings Accounts which remove the HMO bureaucracy currently standing between physicians and patients, the so-called patient protections portions of this bill add a new layer of government-imposed bureaucracy. For example, H.R. 4250 guarantees each patient the right to external and internal review of insurance company’s decisions. However, this does not empower patients to make their own decisions. If both external and internal review turn down a patient’s request for treatment, the average patient will have no choice but to accept the insurance companies decision. Furthermore, anyone who has ever tried to navigate through a government-controlled “appeals process” has reason to be skeptical of the claims that the review process will be completed in less than three days. Imposing new levels of bureaucracy on HMO’s is a poor substitute for returning to the American people the ability to decide for themselves, in consultation with their care giver, what treatments are best for them. Medical Savings Accounts are the best patient protection.
physician
Patient Protection Act of 1998
24 July 1998 1998 Ron Paul 84:12
Perhaps the biggest danger these regulations pose is ratification of the principle that guaranteeing a patients’ access to physicians is the proper role for the government, thus opening the door for further federal control of the patient-physician relationship. I ask my physician-colleagues who support this regulation, once we have accepted the notion that federal government can ensure patients have access to our services, what defense can we offer when the government places new regulations and conditions on that access?
physician
The Failed War On Drugs
15 September 1998 1998 Ron Paul 100:1
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I am a physician, I am a parent and I am a grandparent, and I am convinced that drugs are a very, very serious problem in this country, not only the illegal ones, but the legal ones as well. Just last year, 106,000 people died from the legal use of drugs. We are drug dependent, on the illegal drugs and on the legal tranquilizers. That is a major problem.
physician
The Failed War On Drugs
15 September 1998 1998 Ron Paul 100:4
The Federal controls on illicit drugs has not worked and it is not working when it comes to marijuana. Once again, we have States saying, just allow the physician the option to give some of these people some marijuana. Possibly it will help. I think the jury is still out about how useful it is. But for us to close it down and say one cannot, and deny some comfort to a dying patient, I do not think this is very compassionate one way or the other. The war on drugs has been going on now for several decades. We have spent over $200 billion. There is no evidence to show that there is less drug usage in this country.
physician
National Provider ID
8 October 1998 1998 Ron Paul 115:3
Allowing the federal government to establish a National Health ID not only threatens privacy but also will undermine effective health care. As an OB/GYN with more than 30 years experience in private practice, I know better than most the importance of preserving the sanctity of the physician-patient relationship. Oftentimes, effective treatment depends on a patient’s ability to place absolute trust in his or her doctor. What will happen to that trust when patients know that any and all information given their doctor will be placed in a data base accessible by anyone who knows the patient’s “unique personal identifier?”
physician
National Provider ID
8 October 1998 1998 Ron Paul 115:5
Mr. Chairman, the Clinton administration has even come out in favor of allowing law enforcement officials access to health care information, in complete disregard of the fifth amendment. It is bitterly ironic that the same administration that has proven so inventive at protecting its privacy has so little respect for physician-patient confidentiality.
physician
National Provider ID
8 October 1998 1998 Ron Paul 115:7
The National Provider ID will force physicians who use technologies such as e-mail in their practices to record all health care transactions with the government. This will allow the government to track and monitor the treatment of all patients under that doctor’s care. Government agents may pull up the medical records of a patient with no more justification than a suspicion the provider is involved in fraudulent activity unrelated to that patient’s care!
physician
Freedom And Privacy Restoration Act
6 January 1999 1999 Ron Paul 1:7
Mr. Speaker, the section of this bill prohibiting the federal government from using identifiers to monitor private transactions is necessary to stop schemes such as the attempt to assign every American a “unique health identifier” for every American—an identifier which could be used to create a national database containing the medical history of all Americans. As an OB/GYN with more than 30 years in private practice, I know well the importance of preserving the sanctity of the physician-patient relationship. Oftentimes, effective treatment depends on a patient’s ability to place absolute trust in his or her doctor. What will happen to that trust when patients know that any and all information given to their doctor will be placed in a government accessible data base?
physician
Privacy Project Act
24 June 1999 1999 Ron Paul 68:2
If this scheme is not stopped, no American will be able to get a job; open a bank account; apply for Social Security or Medicare; exercise their Second Amendments rights; or even take an airplane flight unless they can produce a state drivers’ license, or its equivalent, that conforms to federal specifications. Under the 1996 Kennedy-Kassebaum health care reform law, Americans may even be forced to present a federally-approved drivers’ license before consulting their physicians for medical treatment!
physician
Health Care Reform: Treat The Cause, Not The Symptom
4 October 1999 1999 Ron Paul 103:1
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, as an M.D. I know that when I advise on medical legislation that I may be tempted to allow my emotional experience as a physician to influence my views. But, nevertheless, I am acting the role as legislator and politician.
physician
Health Care Reform: Treat The Cause, Not The Symptom
4 October 1999 1999 Ron Paul 103:23
The ERISA law requiring businesses to provide particular programs for their employees should be repealed. The tax codes should give equal tax treatment to everyone whether working for a large corporation, small business, or is self employed. Standards should be set by insurance companies, doctors, patients, and HMOs working out differences through voluntary contracts. For years it was known that some insurance policies excluded certain care and this was known up front and was considered an acceptable provision since it allowed certain patients to receive discounts. The federal government should defer to state governments to deal with the litigation crisis and the need for contract legislation between patients and medical providers. Health care providers should be free to combine their efforts to negotiate effectively with HMOs and insurance companies without running afoul of federal anti-trust laws — or being subject to regulation by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Congress should also remove all federally-imposed roadblocks to making pharmaceuticals available to physicians and patients. Government regulations are a major reason why many Americans find it difficult to afford prescription medicines. It is time to end the days when Americans suffer because the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prevented them from getting access to medicines that where available and affordable in other parts of the world!
physician
Health Care Reform: Treat The Cause, Not The Symptom
4 October 1999 1999 Ron Paul 103:24
The most important thing Congress can do is to get market forces operating immediately by making Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) generously available to everyone desiring one. Patient motivation to save and shop would be a major force to reduce cost, as physicians would once again negotiate fees downward with patients — unlike today where the government reimbursement is never too high and hospital and MD bills are always at maximum levels allowed. MSAs would help satisfy the American’s people’s desire to control their own health care and provide incentives for consumers to take more responsibility for their care.
physician
Quality Care For The Uninsured Act
6 October 1999 1999 Ron Paul 104:1
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, as an MD, I know that when I advise on medical legislation I may be tempted to allow my emotional experience as a physician to influence my views, but nevertheless I am acting the role of legislator and politician. The MD degree grants no wisdom as to the correct solution to our managed care mess. The most efficient manner to deliver medical services, as it is with all goods and other services, is determined by the degree the market is allowed to operate. Economic principles determine efficiency of markets, even the medical care market; not our emotional experiences dealing with managed care.
physician
Quality Care For The Uninsured Act
6 October 1999 1999 Ron Paul 104:19
The ERISA laws requiring businesses to provide particular programs for their employees should be repealed. The tax codes should give equal tax treatment to everyone whether working for a large corporation, small business, or is self employed. Standards should be set by insurance companies, doctors, patients, and HMOs working out differences through voluntary contracts. For years it was known that some insurance policies excluded certain care and this was known up front and was considered an acceptable provision since it allowed certain patients to receive discounts. The federal government should defer to state governments to deal with the litigation crisis and the need for contract legislation between patients and medical providers. Health care providers should be free to combine their efforts to negotiate effectively with HMOs and insurance companies without running afoul of federal anti-trust laws — or being subject to regulation by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Congress should also remove all federally-imposed roadblocks to making pharmaceuticals available to physicians and patients. Government regulations are a major reason why many Americans find it difficult to afford prescription medicines. It is time to end the days when Americans suffer because the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prevented them from getting access to medicines that were available and affordable in other parts of the world!
physician
Quality Care For The Uninsured Act
6 October 1999 1999 Ron Paul 104:20
The most important thing Congress can do is to get market forces operating immediately by making Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) generously available to everyone desiring one. Patient motivation to save and shop would be a major force to reduce cost, as physicians would once again negotiate fees downward with patients — unlike today where the government reimbursement is never too high and hospital and MD bills are always at maximum levels allowed. MSAs would help satisfy the American’s people’s desire to control their own health care and provide incentives for consumers to take more responsibility for their care.
physician
Pain Relief Promotion Act of 1999 (H.R. 2260)
27 October 1999 1999 Ron Paul 111:15
The loss of a narcotic’s license, as this bill would dictate as punishment, is essentially denying a medical license to all doctors practicing medicine. Criminal penalties can be invoked as well. I would like to call attention to my colleagues that this bill is a lot more than changing the Controlled Substance Act. It is involved with educational and training programs to dictate to all physicians providing palliative care and how it should be managed. An entirely new program is set up with an administrator that “shall” carry out a program to accomplish the developing and the advancing of scientific understanding of palliative care and to disseminate protocols and evidence-based practices regarding palliative care.
physician
Pain Relief Promotion Act of 1999 (H.R. 2260)
27 October 1999 1999 Ron Paul 111:16
All physicians should be concerned about a federal government agency setting up protocols for medical care recognizing that many patients need a variation in providing care and a single protocol cannot be construed as being “correct”.
physician
Pain Relief Promotion Act of 1999 (H.R. 2260)
27 October 1999 1999 Ron Paul 111:17
This program is designed to instruct public and private health care programs throughout the nation as well as medical schools, hospices and the general public. Once these standards are set and if any variation occurs and a subsequent death coincidentally occurs that physician will be under the gun from the DEA. Charges will be made and the doctor will have to defend himself and may end up losing his license. It will with certainty dampen the enthusiasm of the physician caring for the critically ill.
physician
Pain Relief Promotion Act of 1999.
27 October 1999 1999 Ron Paul 112:2
Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment. This will improve the bill. I am very concerned, as a physician, that this bill will do great harm to the practice of medicine. This is micromanaging the palliative care of the dying.
physician
Pain Relief Promotion Act of 1999.
27 October 1999 1999 Ron Paul 112:3
So I strongly support this amendment because it will remove the severe penalties and the threats. Physicians are accustomed to practicing with lawyers over their shoulders. Now we are going to add another DEA agent over our shoulders to watch what we do.
physician
Pain Relief Promotion Act of 1999.
27 October 1999 1999 Ron Paul 112:5
Generally speaking, I look at the names of bills and sometimes intentionally and sometimes just out of the way things happen here, almost always the opposite happens from the bill that we raise up. So I would call this the pain promotion act. I really sincerely believe, as a physician, that this will not help.
physician
Pain Relief Promotion Act of 1999.
27 October 1999 1999 Ron Paul 112:6
Too often physicians are intimidated and frightened about giving the adequate pain medication that is necessary to relieve pain. This amendment will be helpful. This is what we should do. We should not intimidate. The idea of dealing with the issue of euthanasis, euthanasia is killing. It is murder.
physician
Pain Relief Promotion Act of 1999.
27 October 1999 1999 Ron Paul 112:13
However, Congress does significantly more damage than simply threatening physicians with penalties for improper prescription of certain drugs — it establishes (albeit illegitimately) the authority to dictate the terms of medical practice and, hence, the legality of assisted suicide nationwide. Even though the motivation of this legislation is clearly to pre-empt the Oregon Statute and may be protective of life in this instance, we mustn’t forget that the saw (or scalpel) cuts both ways. The Roe versus Wade decision — the Court’s intrusion into rights of states and their previous attempts to protect by criminal statute the unborn’s right not to be aggressed against — was quite clearly less protective of life than the Texas statute it obliterated. By assuming the authority to decide for the whole nation issues relating to medical practice, palliative care, and assisted suicide, the foundation is established for a national assisted suicide standard which may not be protective of life when the political winds shift and the Medicare system is on the verge of fiscal collapse. Then, of course, it will be the federal government’s role to make the tough choices of medical procedure rationing and for whom the cost of medical care doesn’t justify life extension. Current law already prohibits private physicians from seeing privately funded patients if they’ve treated a Medicaid patient within two years.
physician
Pain Relief Promotion Act of 1999.
27 October 1999 1999 Ron Paul 112:14
Additionally, this bill empowers the Attorney General to train federal, state, and local law enforcement personnel to discern the difference between palliative care and euthanasia. Most recently, though, it was the Attorney General who specifically exempted the physicians of Oregon from certain provisions of Title 21, the very Title this legislation intends to augment. Under the tutelage of the Attorney General, it would thus become the federal police officer’s role to determine at which point deaths from pain medication constitute assisted suicide.
physician
A Republic, If You Can Keep It
31 January 2000 2000 Ron Paul 2:81
In the early stages, patients, doctors and hospitals welcomed these programs. Generous care was available with more than adequate reimbursement. It led to what one would expect, abuse, overcharges and overuse. When costs rose, it was necessary through government rulemaking and bureaucratic management to cut reimbursement and limit the procedures available and personal choice of physicians. We do not have socialized medicine but we do have bureaucratic medicine, mismanaged by the government and select corporations who usurp the decisionmaking power from the physician. The way medical care is delivered today in the United States is a perfect example of the evils of corporatism and an artificial system that only politicians, responding to the special interests, could create. There is no reason to believe the market cannot deliver medical care in an efficient manner as it does computers, automobiles and televisions. But the confidence is gone and everyone assumes, just as in education, that only a Federal bureaucracy is capable of solving the problems of maximizing the number of people, including the poor, who receive the best medical care available. In an effort to help the poor, the quality of care has gone down for everyone else and the costs have skyrocketed.
physician
The Hillory J. Farias Date Rape Prevention Drug Act of 1999
31 January 2000 2000 Ron Paul 3:6
Additionally, this Act undermines the recently enacted Dietary Supplement Health & Education Act (DSHEA) at the expense of thousands of consumers who have safely used these natural metabolites of the amino acid GABA. According to practicing physician Ward Dean, West Point graduate and former Delta Force flight surgeon, HR 2130 appears to be a case of pharmaceutical-company-protectionism. Because the substances restricted under this act are natural, and hence, non-patentable, the pharmaceutical concerns lose market-share in areas for which GHB is a safer and less expensive means of treating numerous ailments. In a recent letter from Dr. Dean, he states:
physician
A Republic, If You Can Keep It – Part 2
2 February 2000 2000 Ron Paul 5:52
Beneficiaries of this monstrous policy have been tobacco farmers, tobacco manufacturers, politicians, bureaucrats, smokers, health organizations, and physicians, and especially the trial lawyers. Who suffers? The innocent taxpayers that have no choice in the matter and who acted responsibly and chose not to smoke.
physician
2000 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT
March 29, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 21:3
As a physician, I can tell my colleagues, it is a serious problem. There are a lot of people suffering from drug usage in this country. But if something does not work, why are we so determined to pursue a process that does not work?
physician
Medical Privacy Amendment
June 13, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 41:7
As a physician, I can tell my colleagues that this form of invasion of our medical privacy will not serve us well in medical care. What it leads to is incomplete and inaccurate medical records, because it becomes known to the patient as well as the physician that once this information is accumulated that it might get in the hands of the politicians and used for reasons other than for medical care, I think, it could damage medical care endangered from having a medical data bank set up.
physician
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 1304, QUALITY HEALTH-CARE COALITION ACT OF 2000
June 29, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 60:4
All we are asking for here is a little bit of return of freedom to the physician, that is, for the right of the physician to freedom of contract, to associate. We are giving no special powers, no special privileges. Trying to balance just to a small degree the artificial power given to the corporations who now run medicine, who mismanage medicine, who destroyed the doctor-patient relationship.
physician
Quality Health-Care Coalition Act of 2000
June 29, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 61:3
* As an OB-GYN with over 30 years in practice, I am well aware of how young physicians coming out of medical school feel compelled to sign contracts with HMOs that may contain clauses that compromise their professional integrity. For example, many physicians are contractually forbidden from discussing all available treatment options with their patients because the HMO gatekeeper has deemed certain treatment options too expensive. In my own practice, I have tried hard not to sign contracts with any health insurance company that infringed on my ability to practice medicine in the best interests of my patients and I have always counseled my professional colleagues to do the same. Unfortunately, because of the dominance of the HMO in today’s health care market, many health care professionals cannot sustain a medical practice unless they agree to conform their practice to the dictates of some HMO.
physician
INTRODUCTION OF THE IDENTITY THEFT PREVENTION ACT — HON. RON PAUL
Wednesday, January 3, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 1:7
* Mr. Speaker, of all the invasions of privacy proposed in the past decade, perhaps the most onerous is the attempt to assign every American a “unique health identifier” — an identifier which could be used to create a national database containing the medical history of all Americans. As an OB/GYN with more than 30 years in private practice, I know well the importance of preserving the sanctity of the physician-patient relationship. Oftentimes, effective treatment depends on a patient’s ability to place absolute trust in his or her doctor. What will happen to that trust when patients know that any and all information given to their doctor will be placed in a government accessible data base?
physician
CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:136
Free choice is what freedom is all about. And it means freedom to take risks as well. As a physician deeply concerned about the health of all Americans, I am convinced that the government encroachment into health-care choices has been very detrimental.
physician
POTENTIAL FOR WAR
February 08, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 10:81
As a physician deeply concerned about the health of all Americans, I am convinced that the Government encroachment into the health care choices has been very detrimental.
physician
Blame Congress for HMOs
February 27, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 15:3
* The story behind the creation of the HMOs is a classic illustration of how the unintended consequences of government policies provide a justification for further expansions of government power. During the early seventies, Congress embraced HMOs in order to address concerns about rapidly escalating health care costs. However, it was Congress which had caused health care costs to spiral by removing control over the health care dollar from consumers and thus eliminating any incentive for consumers to pay attention to costs when selecting health care. Because the consumer had the incentive to control health care cost stripped away, and because politicians where unwilling to either give up power by giving individuals control over their health care or take responsibility for rationing care, a third way to control costs had to be created. Thus, the Nixon Administration, working with advocates of nationalized medicine, crafted legislation providing federal subsidies to HMOs, preempting state laws forbidding physicians to sign contracts to deny care to their patients, and mandating that health plans offer an HMO option in addition to traditional fee-for-service coverage. Federal subsidies, preemption of state law, and mandates on private business hardly sounds like the workings of the free market. Instead, HMOs are the result of the same Nixon-era corporatist, Big Government mindset that produced wage-and-price controls.
physician
Blame Congress for HMOs
February 27, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 15:12
Offering “free care” led to predictable results. Because Congress placed no restrictions on benefits and removed all sense of cost-consciousness, health-care use and medical costs skyrocketed. Congressional testimony reveals that between 1969 and 1971, physician fees increased 7 percent and hospital charges jumped 13 percent, while the Consumer Price Index rose only 5.3 percent. The nation’s health-care bill, which was only $39 billion in 1965, increased to $75 billion in 1971. Patients had found the fount of unlimited care, and doctors and hospitals had discovered a pot of gold.
physician
Blame Congress for HMOs
February 27, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 15:15
Beginning in 1971, Congress began to restrict reimbursements. They authorized the economic stabilization program to limit price increases; the Relative Value Resource Based System (RVRBS) to cut physician payments; Diagnostic-Related Groups (DRGs) to limit hospitals payments; and most recently, the Prospective Payment System (PPS) to offer fixed prepayments to hospitals, nursing homes, and home health agencies for anticipated services regardless of costs incurred. In effect, Congress initiated managed care. NATIONAL HEALTH-CARE AGENDA ADVANCES
physician
Blame Congress for HMOs
February 27, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 15:24
As patients have since discovered, the HMO — staffed by physicians employed by and beholden to corporations — was not much of a Christmas present or an insurance product. It promises coverage but often denies access. The HMO, like other prepaid MCOs, requires enrollees to pay in advance for a long list of routine and major medical benefits, whether the health-care services are needed, wanted, or ever used. The HMOs are then allowed to manage care — without access to dollars and service — through definitions of medical necessity, restrictive drug formularies, and HMO-approved clinical guidelines. As a result, HMOs can keep millions of dollars from premium-paying patients. HMO BARRIERS ELIMINATED
physician
Blame Congress for HMOs
February 27, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 15:29
In addition, the federal law pre-empted state laws, that prohibited physicians from receiving payments for not providing care. In other words, payments to physicians by HMOs for certain behavior (fewer admissions to hospitals, rationing care, prescribing cheaper medicines) were now legal.
physician
The Medical Privacy Protection Resolution
March 15, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 19:11
* The American public is right to oppose these regulations, for they not only endanger privacy but could even endanger health! As an OB-GYN with more than 30 years experience in private practice, I am very concerned by the threat to medical practice posed by these regulations. The confidential physician-patient relationship is the basis of good health care. Oftentimes, effective treatment depends on the patient’s ability to place absolute trust in his or her doctor. The legal system has acknowledged the importance of maintaining physician-patient confidentiality by granting physicians a privilege not to divulge confidential patient information.
physician
The Medical Privacy Protection Resolution
March 15, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 19:12
* I ask my colleagues to consider what will happen to that trust between patients and physicians when patients know that any and all information given their doctor may be placed in a government database or seen by medical researchers or handed over to government agents without so much as a simple warrant?
physician
Letter to HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson Regarding Proposed Medical Privacy Regulation
May 23, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 39:4
HHS should also eliminate those sections which require physicians to provide the federal government with personal medical records for purposes of monitoring compliance with the rule. HHS should only collect information if the physicians or the federal government has obtained written permission from the patient allowing HHS to obtain their records.
physician
Letter to HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson Regarding Proposed Medical Privacy Regulation
May 23, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 39:6
I am also aware that some will make the argument that there is a “social good” in medical research that outweighs the individual’s right to privacy. As a physician, I certainly recognize the value and importance of medical research. However, as a legislator, I also recognize that because people have a property interest in their medical information, forcing individuals to divulge medical information without their consent runs afoul of the fifth amendment’s taking clause, which was designed to prevent sacrifices of individual liberty and property for the “common good.”
physician
Quasquicentennial Of The Texas State Constitution Of 1876
18 July 2001 2001 Ron Paul 58:5
Whereas, The more than 90 delegates to the 1875 Constitutional Convention were a diverse group — most were farmers and lawyers; some were merchants, editors, and physicians; some were legislators and judges; some had fought in the Civil War armies of the South as well as of the North; at least five were African-American; 75 were Democrats; 15 were Republicans; and 37 belonged to the Grange, a non-partisan and agrarian order of patrons of husbandry; one delegate had even served nearly four decades earlier as a delegate to the 1836 Constitutional Convention; and
physician
THE PATIENT PRIVACY ACT -- HON. RON PAUL
July 24, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 65:5
* As an OB/GYN-with more than 30 years experience in private practice, I know better than most the importance of preserving the sanctity of the physician-patient relationship. Oftentimes, effective treatment depends on a patient’s ability to place absolute trust in his or her doctor. What will happen to that trust when patients know that any and all information given their doctor will be placed in a data base accessible by anyone who knows the patient’s “unique personal identifier?”
physician
Patient’s Bill of Rights Undermines Individual Rights
August 2, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 73:2
Mr. Speaker, as you know, I am a physician. I practiced medicine for more than 30 years, and I can certainly vouch for the fact that medicine is a mess, managed care is not working very well; and, hopefully, we do something good to improve it. Unfortunately, I am not all that optimistic.
physician
Patient’s Bill of Rights Undermines Individual Rights
August 2, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 73:4
But the IRS code has 17,000 pages of regulation. The regulations that we as physicians have to put up with are 132,000 pages. Most everything I see that is happening today is we are going to increase those pages by many more thousands. So I am not optimistic that is going to do a whole lot of good.
physician
Patients’ Bill Of Rights
2 August 2001 2001 Ron Paul 74:2
The proper way to examine health care issues is to apply the same economic and constitutional principles that one would apply to every other issue. As an M.D., I know that when I advise on medical legislation that I may be tempted to allow my emotional experience as a physician to influence my views. But, nevertheless, I am acting in the role as legislator and politician.
physician
Patients’ Bill Of Rights
2 August 2001 2001 Ron Paul 74:5
However, it was previous Congressional action which caused health care costs to spiral by removing control over the health care dollar from consumers and thus eliminating any incentive for consumers to pay attention to prices when selecting health care. Because the consumer had the incentive to monitor health care prices stripped away and because politicians were unwilling to either give up power by giving individuals control over their health care or take responsibility for rationing care, a third way to control costs had to be created. Thus, the Nixon Administration, working with advocates of nationalized medicine, crafted legislation providing federal subsidies to HMOs and preempting state laws forbidding physicians to sign contracts to deny care to their patients. This legislation also mandated that health plans offer an HMO option in addition to traditional fee-for-service coverage. Federal subsidies, preemption of state law, and mandates on private business hardly sound like the workings of the free market. Instead, HMOs are the result of the same Nixon-era corporatist, big government mindset that produced wage-and-price controls.
physician
Patients’ Bill Of Rights
2 August 2001 2001 Ron Paul 74:13
Of course, the real power over health care will lie with the unelected bureaucrats who will implement and interpret these broad and vague mandates. Federal bureaucrats already have too much power over health care. Today, physicians struggle with over 132,000 pages of Medicare regulations. To put that in perspective, I ask my colleagues to consider that the IRS code is “mere” 17,000 pages. Many physicians pay attorneys as much as $7,000 for a compliance plan to guard against mistakes in filing government forms, a wise investment considering even an innocent mistake can result in fines of up to $25,000. In case doctors are not terrorized enough by the federal bureaucracy, HCFA has requested authority to carry guns on their audits!
physician
Patients’ Bill Of Rights
2 August 2001 2001 Ron Paul 74:17
Congress should also remove all federallyimposed roadblocks to making pharmaceuticals available to physicians and patients. Government regulations are a major reason why many Americans find it difficult to afford prescription medicines. It is time to end the days when Americans suffer because the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prevented them from getting access to medicines that where available and affordable in other parts of the world!
physician
Patients’ Bill Of Rights
2 August 2001 2001 Ron Paul 74:18
While none of the proposed “Patients’ Bill of Rights” addresses the root cause of the problems in our nation’s health care system, the amendment offered by the gentleman from Kentucky does expend individual control over health care by making Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) available to everyone. This is the most important thing Congress can do to get market forces operating immediately and improve health care. When MSAs make patient motivation to save and shop a major force to reduce cost, physicians would once again negotiate fees downward with patients — unlike today where the reimbursement is never too high and hospital and MD bills are always at the maximum levels allowed. MSAs would help satisfy the American’s people’s desire to control their own health care and provide incentives for consumers to take more responsibility for their care.
physician
H.R. 4954
27 June 2002 2002 Ron Paul 63:2
I am pleased that the drafters of H.R. 4954 incorporate regulatory relief legislation, which I have supported in the past, into the bill. This will help relieve some of the tremendous regulatory burden imposed on health care providers by the Federal Government. I am also pleased that H.R. 4954 contains several good provisions addressing the Congressionally-created crisis in rural health and attempting to ensure that physicians are fairly reimbursed by the Medicare system.
physician
Commending Efforts Of John Keating, Joe Sapere, And Jerry Suggs
10 July 2002 2002 Ron Paul 68:4
As a Physician and Congressman, I honor these gentlemen for their efforts and invite others to learn more about these activities on line at www.amputees-across-america.com.
physician
Statement on Medical Malpractice Legislation
September 26, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 90:3
Of course, I am not suggesting Congress place price controls on the insurance industry, Instead, Congress should reexamine those federal laws such as ERISA and the HMO Act of 1973, which have allowed insurers to achieve such a prominent role in the medical profession. As I will detail below, Congress should also take steps to encourage contractual means of resolving malpractice disputes. Such an approach may not be beneficial to the insurance companies or the trial lawyers, but will certainly benefit the patients and physicians which both sides in this debate claim to represent.
physician
Statement on Medical Malpractice Legislation
September 26, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 90:8
Rather than further expanding unconstitutional mandates and harming those with a legitimate claim to collect compensation, Congress should be looking for ways to encourage physicians and patients to resolve questions of liability via private, binding contracts. The root cause of the malpractice crisis (and all of the problems with the health care system) is the shift away from treating the doctor-patient relationship as a contractual one to viewing it as one governed by regulations imposed by insurance company functionaries, politicians, government bureaucrats, and trial lawyers. There is no reason why questions of the assessment of liability and compensation cannot be determined by a private contractual agreement between physicians and patients.
physician
Statement on Medical Malpractice Legislation
September 26, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 90:10
Congress could also help physicians lower insurance rates by passing legislation that removes the antitrust restrictions preventing physicians from forming professional organizations for the purpose of negotiating contracts with insurance companies and HMOs. These laws give insurance companies and HMOs, who are often protected from excessive malpractice claims by ERISA, the ability to force doctors to sign contracts exposing them to excessive insurance premiums and limiting their exercise of professional judgment. The lack of a level playing field also enables insurance companies to raise premiums at will. In fact, it seems odd that malpractice premiums have skyrocketed at a time when insurance companies need to find other sources of revenue to compensate for their recent losses in the stock market.
physician
Stop Identity Theft – Make Social Security Numbers Confidential
January 7, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 4:7
Mr. Speaker, of all the invasions of privacy proposed in the past decade, perhaps the most onerous is the attempt to assign every American a “unique health identifier” — an identifier which could be used to create a national database containing the medical history of all Americans. As an OB/GYN with more than 30 years in private practice, I know the importance of preserving the sanctity of the physician-patient relationship. Oftentimes, effective treatment depends on a patient’s ability to place absolute trust in his or her doctor. What will happen to that trust when patients know that any and all information given to their doctor will be placed in a government accessible database? Some members of Congress may claim that the federal monitoring of all Americans will enhance security. However, the fact is that creating a surveillance state will divert valuable resources away from investigating legitimate security threats into spying on innocent Americans, thus reducing security. The American people would be better served if the government focused attention on ensuring our borders are closed to potential terrorists instead of coming up with new ways to violate the rights of American citizens.
physician
Quality Health Care Coalition Act
12 March 2003 2003 Ron Paul 32:3
As an OB–GYN with over 30 years in practice, I am well aware of how young physicians coming out of medical school feel compelled to sign contracts with HMOs that may contain clauses that compromise their professional integrity. For example, many physicians are contractually forbidden from discussing all available treatment options with their patients because the HMO gatekeeper has deemed certain treatment options too expensive. In my own practice, I have tried hard not to sign contracts with any health insurance company that infringed on my ability to practice medicine in the best interests of my patients and I have always counseled my professional colleagues to do the same. Unfortunately, because of the dominance of the HMO in today’s health care market, many health care professionals cannot sustain a medical practice unless they agree to conform their practice to the dictates of some HMO.
physician
Freedom From Unnecessary Litigation Act
12 March 2003 2003 Ron Paul 33:2
Relying on negative outcomes insurance instead of litigation will also reduce the costs imposed on physicians, other health care providers, and hospitals by malpractice litigation. The Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act also promotes effective solutions to the malpractice crisis by making malpractice awards obtained through binding, voluntary arbitration tax-free.
physician
Freedom From Unnecessary Litigation Act
12 March 2003 2003 Ron Paul 33:4
As is typical of Washington, most of the proposed solutions to the malpractice problem involve unconstitutional usurpations of areas best left to the states. These solutions also ignore the root cause of the litigation crisis: the shift away from treating the doctor-patient relationship as a contractual one to viewing it as one governed by regulations imposed by insurance company functionaries, politicians, government bureaucrats, and trial lawyers. There is no reason why questions of the assessment of liability and compensation cannot be determined by a private contractual agreement between physicians and patients. The Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act is designed to take a step toward resolving these problems through private contracts.
physician
Freedom From Unnecessary Litigation Act
12 March 2003 2003 Ron Paul 33:5
Using insurance, private contracts, and binding arbitration to resolve medical disputes benefits patients, who receive full compensation in a timelier manner than under the current system. It also benefits physicians and hospitals, which are relieved of the costs associated with litigation. Since it will not cost as much to provide full compensation to an injured patient, these bills should result in a reduction of malpractice premiums. The Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act benefits everybody except those trial lawyers who profit from the current system. I hope all my colleagues will help end the malpractice crises while ensuring those harmed by medical injuries receive just compensation by cosponsoring my Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act.
physician
Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act (H.R. 1249)
13 March 2003 2003 Ron Paul 34:3
Of course, I am not suggesting Congress place price controls on the insurance industry. Instead, Congress should reexamine those federal laws such as ERISA and the HMO Act of 1973, which have allowed insurers to achieve such a prominent role in the medical profession. As I will detail below, Congress should also take steps to encourage contractual means of resolving malpractice disputes. Such an approach may not be beneficial to the insurance companies or the trial lawyers, buy will certainly benefit the patients and physicians, which both sides in this debate claim to represent.
physician
Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act (H.R. 1249)
13 March 2003 2003 Ron Paul 34:7
Rather than further expanding unconstitutional mandates and harming those with a legitimate claim to collect compensation, Congress should be looking for ways to encourage physicians and patients to resolve questions of liability via private, binding contracts. The root cause of the malpractice crisis (and all of the problems with the health care system) is the shift away from treating the doctor-patient relationship as a contractual one to viewing it as one governed by regulations imposed by insurance company functionaries, politicians, government bureaucrats, and trial lawyers. There is no reason why questions of the assessment of liability and compensation cannot be determined by a private contractual agreement between physicians and patients.
physician
Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act (H.R. 1249)
13 March 2003 2003 Ron Paul 34:9
Congress could also help physicians lower insurance rates by passing legislation, such as my Quality Health Care Coalition Act (H.R. 1247), that removes the antitrust restrictions preventing physicians from forming professional organizations for the purpose of negotiating contracts with insurance companies and HMOs. These laws give insurance companies and HMOs, who are often protected from excessive malpractice claims by ERISA, the ability to force doctors to sign contracts exposing them to excessive insurance premiums and limiting their exercise of professional judgment. The lack of a level playing field also enables insurance companies to raise premiums at will. In fact, it seems odd that malpractice premiums have skyrocketed at a time when insurance companies need to find other sources of revenue to compensate for their losses in the stock market.
physician
Crisis In Healthcare
13 March 2003 2003 Ron Paul 35:1
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, America faces a crisis in health care. Health care costs continue to rise while physicians and patients struggle under the control of managed-care “gatekeepers.” Obviously, fundamental health care reform should be one of Congress’ top priorities.
physician
Crisis In Healthcare
13 March 2003 2003 Ron Paul 35:2
Unfortunately, most health care “reform” proposals either make marginal changes or exacerbate the problem. This is because they fail to address the root of the problem with health care, which is that government policies encourage excessive reliance on third-party payers. The excessive reliance on third-party payers removes all ilncentive from individual patients to concern themselves with health care costs. Laws and policies promoting Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) resulted from a desperate attempt to control spiraling costs. However, instead of promoting an efficient health care system, HMOs further took control over health care away from the individual patient and physician.
physician
“Negative Outcomes” Insurance – A Free-Market Approach to the Medical Malpractice
March 27, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 39:1
Relying on negative outcomes insurance instead of litigation will also reduce the costs imposed on physicians, other health care providers, and hospitals by malpractice litigation. The Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act also promotes effective solutions to the malpractice crisis by making malpractice awards obtained through binding, voluntary arbitration tax-free.
physician
“Negative Outcomes” Insurance – A Free-Market Approach to the Medical Malpractice
March 27, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 39:3
As is typical of Washington, most of the proposed solutions to the malpractice problem involve unconstitutional usurpations of areas best left to the states. These solutions also ignore the root cause of the litigation crisis: the shift away from treating the doctor-patient relationship as a contractual one to viewing it as one governed by regulations imposed by insurance company functionaries, politicians, government bureaucrats, and trial lawyers. There is no reason why questions of the assessment of liability and compensation cannot be determined by a private contractual agreement between physicians and patients. The Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act is designed to take a step toward resolving these problems through private contracts.
physician
“Negative Outcomes” Insurance – A Free-Market Approach to the Medical Malpractice
March 27, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 39:4
Using insurance, private contracts, and binding arbitration to resolve medical disputes benefits patients, who receive full compensation in a timelier manner than under the current system. It also benefits physicians and hospitals, which are relieved of the costs associated with litigation. Since it will not cost as much to provide full compensation to an injured patient, these bills should result in a reduction of malpractice premiums. The Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act benefits everybody except those trial lawyers who profit from the current system. I hope all my colleagues will help end the malpractice crises while ensuring those harmed by medical injuries receive just compensation by cosponsoring my Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act.
physician
Comprehensive Health Care Reform Without Socialized Medicine
March 27, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 40:1
Mr. Speaker, America faces a crisis in health care. Health care costs continue to rise while physicians and patients struggle under the control of managed-care “gatekeepers.” Obviously, fundamental health care reform should be one of Congress’ top priorities.
physician
Comprehensive Health Care Reform Without Socialized Medicine
March 27, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 40:2
Unfortunately, most health care reform proposals either make marginal changes or exacerbate the problem. This is because they fail to address the root of the problem with health care, which is that government polices encourage excessive reliance on third-party payers. The excessive reliance on third-party payers removes all incentive from individual patients to concern themselves with health care costs. Laws and policies promoting Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) resulted from a desperate attempt to control spiraling costs. However, instead of promoting an efficient health care system, HMOs further took control over health care away from the individual patient and physician.
physician
Repeal the So-Called “Medical Privacy Rule”
April 9, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 49:11
As an OB-GYN with more than 30 years experience in private practice, I am very concerned by the threat to medical practice posed by these privacy regulations and the unique health identifier scheme. The confidential physician-patient relationship is the basis of good health care.
physician
Repeal the So-Called “Medical Privacy Rule”
April 9, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 49:12
Oftentimes, effective treatment depends on the patient’s ability to place absolute trust in his doctor. The legal system has acknowledged the importance of maintaining physician-patient confidentiality by granting physicians a privilege not to divulge confidential patient information.
physician
Repeal the So-Called “Medical Privacy Rule”
April 9, 2003 2003 Ron Paul 49:13
I ask my colleagues to consider how comfortable you would be confiding an embarrassing physical or emotional problem to your physicians if you knew that any and all information given your doctor may be placed in a government database or seen by medical researchers, handed over to government agents without so much as a simple warrant or accessed by anyone who happens to know your unique health identifier?
physician
Against $15 Billion To Fight AIDS In Africa
1 May 2003 2003 Ron Paul 53:2
One, I think the odds are very slim that it is going to do a whole lot of good. It is very well-intended. I am a physician, and I cannot think of anything better than to wipe out AIDS in Africa, or in the United States, for that matter. But $15 billion going to Africa on a questionable program bothers me because at the same time, we are cutting benefits to our veterans and also the elderly have a hard time getting medical care here. So there is a practical argument against the legislation.
physician
Big Program Won’t Eliminate AIDS
1 May 2003 2003 Ron Paul 54:1
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, as a physician I am particularly concerned about terrible diseases like AIDS. I have great sympathy for those — in increasing numbers — who suffer and die around the world. The question is not whether each and every one of us is concerned or would like to do something about this terrible problem. The question is whether yet another massive government foreign aid program will actually do anything at all to solve the problem. The United States has been sending billions and billions of dollars overseas for decades to do fine-sounding things like “build democracy” and “fight drugs” and “end poverty.” Yet decades later we are told that in every category these things have actually gotten worse rather than better. Our money has disappeared into bank accounts of dictators and salaries for extremely well-paid consultants and U.S. Government employees. Yet we refuse to learn from these mistakes; we are about to make another multi-billion dollar mistake with this bill.
physician
Medicare Funds For Prescription Drugs
26 June 2003 2003 Ron Paul 71:2
I am pleased that the drafters of H.R. 1 incorporate regulatory relief legislation, which have supported in the past, into the bill. This will help relieve some of the tremendous regulatory burden imposed on health care providers by the Federal Government. I am also pleased that H.R. 1 contains several good provisions addressing the congressionally-created crisis in rural health and attempts to ensure that physicians are fairly reimbursed by the Medicare system.
physician
The Senior Citizens Freedom Of Choice Act
17 July 2003 2003 Ron Paul 81:5
Seniors may wish to refuse Medicare for a variety of reasons. Some seniors may wish to continue making their own health care decisions, rather than have those decisions made for them by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Other seniors may have a favorite physician who is one of the growing number of doctors who have been driven out of the Medicare program by CMS’s micromanagement of their practices and below-cost reimbursements.
physician
Medicinal Marijuana
22 July 2003 2003 Ron Paul 89:4
This has a lot to do with State law; but more importantly, as a physician, I see this bill as something dealing with compassion. As a physician, I have seen those who have died with cancer and getting chemotherapy and with AIDS and having nothing to help them.
physician
Medicinal Marijuana
22 July 2003 2003 Ron Paul 89:5
There is the case in California of Peter McDaniels, who was diagnosed with cancer and AIDS. California changed the law and permitted him to use marijuana if it was self-grown, and he was using it; and yet although he was dying, the Federal officials came in and arrested him and he was taken to court. The terrible irony of this was here was a man that was dying and the physicians were not giving him any help; and when he was tried, it was not allowed to be said that he was obeying the State law.
physician
Medicinal Marijuana
22 July 2003 2003 Ron Paul 89:7
There are more people who die from the use of legal drugs than illegal drugs. Just think of that. More people die from the use of legal drugs; and also, there are more deaths from the drug war than there are from deaths from using the illegal drugs. So it has gotten out of control. But the whole idea that a person who is dying, a physician cannot even prescribe something that might help them. The terrible irony of Peter McDaniels was that he died because of vomiting, something that could have and had only been curtailed by the use of marijuana. No other medication had helped; and we, the Federal Government, go in there and deny this and defy the State law, the State law of California.
physician
Medicinal Marijuana
22 July 2003 2003 Ron Paul 89:9
The whole notion that we can deny this right to the States to allow a little bit of compassion for a patient that is dying, I would say this is a compassionate vote. If we care about the people being sick, then we have to vote for this amendment. This will do nothing to increase the use of bad drugs. The bad drugs are there; and as a physician and a parent and a grandparent, I preach against it all the time, but the unwise use of drugs is a medical problem, just like alcoholism is a medical problem; but we have turned this into a monster to the point where we will not even allow a person dying from cancer and AIDS to get a little bit of relief.
physician
A Wise Consistency
February 11, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 2:15
FDA and Legal Drugs—For Our Own Protection : Our laws and attitudes regarding legal drugs are almost as harmful. The FDA supposedly exists to protect the consumer and patients. This conclusion is based on an assumption that consumers are idiots and all physicians and drug manufacturers are unethical or criminals. It also assumes that bureaucrats and politicians, motivated by good intentions, can efficiently bring drugs onto the market in a timely manner and at reasonable cost. These same naïve dreamers are the ones who say that in order to protect the people from themselves, we must prohibit them from being allowed to re-import drugs from Canada or Mexico at great savings. The FDA virtually guarantees that new drugs come online slower and cost more money. Small companies are unable to pay the legal expenses, and don’t get the friendly treatment that politically connected big drug companies receive. If a drug seems to offer promise, especially for a life-threatening disease, why is it not available, with full disclosure, to anyone who wants to try it? No, our protectors say that no one gets to use it, or make their own decisions, until the FDA guarantees that each drug has been proven safe and effective. And believe me, the FDA is quite capable of making mistakes, even after years of testing. It seems criminal when cancer patients come to our congressional offices begging and pleading for a waiver to try some new drug. We call this a free society! For those who can’t get a potentially helpful drug but might receive a little comfort from some marijuana, raised in their own back yard legally in their home state, the heavy hand of the DEA comes down hard, actually arresting and imprisoning ill patients. Federal drug laws blatantly preempt state laws, adding insult to injury.
physician
Federal War On Drugs Threatens The Effective Treatment Of Chronic Pain
11 February 2004 2004 Ron Paul 4:2
In cases where patients are not high profile celebrities like Mr. Limbaugh, it is a pain management physician who bears the brunt of overzealous prosecutors. Faced with the failure of the War on Drugs to eliminate drug cartels and kingpins, prosecutors and police have turned their attention to pain management doctors, using federal statutes designed for the prosecution of drug kingpins to prosecute physicians for prescribing pain medicine.
physician
Federal War On Drugs Threatens The Effective Treatment Of Chronic Pain
11 February 2004 2004 Ron Paul 4:3
Many of the cases brought against physicians are rooted in the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)’s failure to consider current medical standards regarding the use of opioids, including OxyContin, in formulating policy. Opioids are the pharmaceuticals considered most effective in relieving chronic pain. Federal law classifies most opioids as Schedule II drugs, the same classification given to cocaine and heroin, despite a growing body of opinion among the medical community that opioids should not be classified with these substances.
physician
Federal War On Drugs Threatens The Effective Treatment Of Chronic Pain
11 February 2004 2004 Ron Paul 4:5
This harassment by law enforcement has forced some doctors to close their practices, while others have stopped prescribing opioids — even though opioids are the only way some of their patients can obtain pain relief. The current attitude toward pain physicians is exemplified by Assistant U.S. Attorney Gene Rossi’s statement that “our office will try our best to root out [certain doctors] like the Taliban.”
physician
Federal War On Drugs Threatens The Effective Treatment Of Chronic Pain
11 February 2004 2004 Ron Paul 4:7
Doctors are even being punished for the misdeeds of their patients. For example, Dr. James Graves was sentenced to more than 60 years for manslaughter because several of his patients overdosed on various combinations of pain medications and other drugs, including illegal street drugs. As a physician with over thirty years experience in private practice, I find it outrageous that a physician would be held criminally liable for a patient’s misuse of medicine.
physician
Federal War On Drugs Threatens The Effective Treatment Of Chronic Pain
11 February 2004 2004 Ron Paul 4:8
The American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), one of the nation’s leading defenders of private medical practice and medical liberty, has recently advised doctors to avoid prescribing opioids because, according to AAPS, “drug agents set medical standards.” I would hope that my colleagues would agree that doctors, not federal agents, should determine medical standards.
physician
Federal War On Drugs Threatens The Effective Treatment Of Chronic Pain
11 February 2004 2004 Ron Paul 4:9
By waging this war on pain physicians, the government is condemning patients to either live with excruciating chronic pain or seek opioids from other, less reliable, sources — such as street drug dealers. Of course, opioids bought on the street will likely pose a greater risk of damaging a patient’s health than will opioids obtained from a physician.
physician
Federal War On Drugs Threatens The Effective Treatment Of Chronic Pain
11 February 2004 2004 Ron Paul 4:10
Finally, as the Limbaugh case reveals, the prosecution of pain management physicians destroys the medical privacy of all chronic pain patients. Under the guise of prosecuting the drug war, law enforcement officials can rummage through patients’ personal medical records and, as may be the case with Mr. Limbaugh, use information uncovered to settle personal or political scores. I am pleased that AAPS, along with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), has joined the effort to protect Mr. Limbaugh’s medical records.
physician
Federal War On Drugs Threatens The Effective Treatment Of Chronic Pain
11 February 2004 2004 Ron Paul 4:11
Mr. Speaker, Congress should take action to rein in overzealous prosecutors and law enforcement officials and stop the harassment of legitimate pain management physicians, who are acting in good faith in prescribing opioids for relief from chronic pain. Doctors should not be prosecuted for doing what, in their best medical judgment, is in their patients’ best interest. Doctors should also not be prosecuted for the misdeeds of their patients. Finally, I wish to express my hope that Mr. Limbaugh’s case will encourage his many fans and supporters to consider how their support for the federal War on Drugs is inconsistent with their support of individual liberty and Constitutional government.
physician
Rush Limbaugh and the Sick Federal War on Pain Relief
February 12, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 5:2
In cases where patients are not high profile celebrities like Mr. Limbaugh, it is pain management physicians who bear the brunt of overzealous prosecutors. Faced with the failure of the war on drugs to eliminate drug cartels and kingpins, prosecutors and police have turned their attention to pain management doctors, using federal statutes designed for the prosecution of drug dealers to prosecute physicians for prescribing pain medicine.
physician
Rush Limbaugh and the Sick Federal War on Pain Relief
February 12, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 5:3
Many of the cases brought against physicians are rooted in the federal Drug Enforcement Administration’s failure to consider current medical standards regarding the use of opioids, including OxyContin, in formulating policy. Opioids are the pharmaceuticals considered most effective in relieving chronic pain. Federal law classifies most opioids as Schedule II drugs, the same classification given to cocaine and heroin, despite a growing body of opinion among the medical community that opioids should not be classified with these substances.
physician
Rush Limbaugh and the Sick Federal War on Pain Relief
February 12, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 5:5
This harassment by law enforcement has forced some doctors to close their practices, while others have stopped prescribing opioids altogether — even though opioids are the only way some of their patients can obtain pain relief. The current attitude toward pain physicians is exemplified by Assistant US Attorney Gene Rossi’s statement that “Our office will try our best to root out [certain doctors] like the Taliban.”
physician
Rush Limbaugh and the Sick Federal War on Pain Relief
February 12, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 5:7
Doctors are even being punished for the misdeeds of their patients. For example, Dr. James Graves was sentenced to more than 60 years for manslaughter because several of his patients overdosed on various combinations of pain medications and other drugs, including illegal street drugs. As a physician with over thirty years of experience in private practice, I find it outrageous that a physician would be held criminally liable for a patient’s misuse of medicine.
physician
Rush Limbaugh and the Sick Federal War on Pain Relief
February 12, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 5:8
The American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), one of the nation’s leading defenders of medical freedom, recently advised doctors to avoid prescribing opioids because, according to AAPS, “drug agents set medical standards.” I would hope my colleagues would agree that doctors, not federal agents, should determine medical standards.
physician
Rush Limbaugh and the Sick Federal War on Pain Relief
February 12, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 5:9
By waging this war on pain physicians, the government is condemning patients to either live with excruciating chronic pain or seek opioids from other, less reliable, sources — such as street drug dealers. Of course opioids bought on the street likely will pose a greater risk of damaging a patient’s health than opioids obtained from a physician.
physician
Rush Limbaugh and the Sick Federal War on Pain Relief
February 12, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 5:10
Finally, as the Limbaugh case reveals, the prosecution of pain management physicians destroys the medical privacy of all chronic pain patients. Under the guise of prosecuting the drug war, law enforcement officials can rummage through patients’ personal medical records and, as may be the case with Mr. Limbaugh, use information uncovered to settle personal or political scores. I am pleased that AAPS, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, has joined the effort to protect Mr. Limbaugh’s medical records.
physician
Rush Limbaugh and the Sick Federal War on Pain Relief
February 12, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 5:11
Mr. Speaker, Congress should take action to rein in overzealous prosecutors and law enforcement officials, and stop the harassment of legitimate physicians who act in good faith when prescribing opioids for relief from chronic pain. Doctors should not be prosecuted for using their best medical judgment to act in their patients’ best interests. Doctors also should not be prosecuted for the misdeeds of their patients.
physician
H. Res. 412 Honoring Men And Women Of The Drug Enforcement Administration — Part 1
3 March 2004 2004 Ron Paul 10:4
I do not know of anybody who likes drugs and advocates the use of drugs. I as a physician am strongly opposed to the use of drugs. It is just that the techniques make a big difference. We are talking about bad habits, and yet we are resorting to the use of force, literally an army of agents and hundreds of billions of dollars over a 30-year period, in an effort to bring about changes in people’s habits. Someday we are going to have to decide how successful we have been. Was it a good investment? Have we really accomplished anything?
physician
H. Res. 412 Honoring Men And Women Of The Drug Enforcement Administration — Part 1
3 March 2004 2004 Ron Paul 10:11
One other point is that as a physician I have come to the firm conclusion that the war on drugs has been very detrimental to the practice of medicine and the care of patients. The drug culture has literally handicapped physicians in caring for the ill and the pain that people suffer with terminal illnesses. I have seen doctors in tears coming to me and saying that all his wife had asked me for was to die not in pain; and even he, as a physician, could not get enough pain medication because they did not want to make her an addict. So we do have a lot of unintended consequences.
physician
H. Res. 412 Honoring Men And Women Of The Drug Enforcement Administration — Part 2
3 March 2004 2004 Ron Paul 11:7
One hundred years ago, you could buy cocaine in a drugstore. Most Americans would be tremendously surprised to realize that for most of our history drugs were not illegal. The first marijuana law was in 1938. And they got around that on the constitutional aspect by just putting a tax on it. So there is a lack of respect for how we solve our problems, a lack of wisdom on what we ought to do, and a lack of concern; and this is my deep concern as a physician, a lack of concern for seeing people dying and suffering.
physician
H. Res. 412 Honoring Men And Women Of The Drug Enforcement Administration — Part 2
3 March 2004 2004 Ron Paul 11:14
Let me tell Members, there is a politically popular position in this country that many are not aware of: The tragedy of so many families seeing their loved ones die and suffer without adequate care, 90-year-old people dying of cancer and nurses and doctors intimidated and saying we cannot make them a drug addict. This drug war culture that we live with has done a lot of harm in the practice of medicine. Attacking the physicians who prescribe pain medicine and taking their licenses from them is reprehensible. I ask Members to please reconsider, not so much what we do today, but in the future, maybe we will wake up and decide there is a better way to teach good habits to American citizens.
physician
Stop Prosecuting Doctors For Prescribing Legal Drugs
7 July 2004 2004 Ron Paul 46:3
It is not one or two or three or four. There are approximately 400 doctors who have been prosecuted, and I know some of them, and I know they are good physicians; and we are creating a monster of a problem. It does not mean that I believe that none of these doctors have a problem. As a physician, I know what they are up against and what they face, and that is, that we have now created a system where a Federal bureaucrat makes the medical decision about whether or not a doctor has prescribed too many pain pills. I mean, that is how bureaucratic we have become even in medicine; but under these same laws that should be used going after kingpins, they are now being used to go after the doctors.
physician
Stop Prosecuting Doctors For Prescribing Legal Drugs
7 July 2004 2004 Ron Paul 46:4
As I say, some of them may well be involved in something illegal and unethical; and because I still want to stop this, this does not mean I endorse it, because all the problems that do exist with some doctors can be taken care of in many different ways. Doctors are regulated by their reputation, by medical boards, State and local laws, as well as malpractice suits. So this is not to give license and say the doctors can do anything they want and cause abuse because there are ways of monitoring physicians; but what has happened is we have, as a Congress, developed a great atmosphere of fear among the doctors.
physician
Stop Prosecuting Doctors For Prescribing Legal Drugs
7 July 2004 2004 Ron Paul 46:5
The American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, a large group of physicians in this country, has now advised their members not to use any opiates for pain, not to give adequate pain pills because the danger of facing prosecution is so great. So the very people in the medical profession who face the toughest cases, those individuals with cancer who do not need a couple of Tylenol, they might need literally dozens, if not hundreds, of tablets to control their pain, these doctors are being prosecuted.
physician
Stop Prosecuting Doctors For Prescribing Legal Drugs
7 July 2004 2004 Ron Paul 46:6
Now, that is a travesty in itself; but the real travesty is what it does to the other physicians, and what it is doing is making everybody fearful. The other doctors are frightened. Nurses are too frightened to give adequate pain medications even in the hospitals because of this atmosphere.
physician
Stop Prosecuting Doctors For Prescribing Legal Drugs
7 July 2004 2004 Ron Paul 46:7
My suggestion here is to deny the funding to the Justice Department to prosecute these modest numbers, 3 or 400 doctors, leave that monitoring to the States where it should be in the first place, and let us get rid of this idea that some bureaucrat in Washington can determine how many pain pills I, as a physician, can give a patient that may be suffering from cancer.
physician
Stop Prosecuting Doctors For Prescribing Legal Drugs
7 July 2004 2004 Ron Paul 46:9
So my suggestion is let us take it away, take away the funding of the Justice Department to prosecute these cases, and I think it would go a long way to improving the care of medicine. At the same time, it would be a much fairer approach to the physicians that are now being prosecuted unfairly.
physician
Marinol And Terrorism
7 July 2004 2004 Ron Paul 48:2
Mr. Chairman, I, too, am a physician from Texas, but I have a little different opinion about Marinol. No doctor that I know of ever prescribes Marinol.
physician
Reject a National Prescription Database
October 5, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 74:1
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to HR 3015, the National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act. This bill is yet another unjustifiable attempt by the federal government to use the war on drugs as an excuse for invading the privacy and liberties of the American people and for expanding the federal government’s disastrous micromanagement of medical care. As a physician with over 30 years experience in private practice, I must oppose this bill due to the danger it poses to our health as well as our liberty.
physician
Introducing The Identity Theft protection Act
4 January 2005 2005 Ron Paul 2:8
The Identity Theft Prevention Act repeals those sections of Federal law creating the national ID, as well as those sections of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 that require the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a uniform standard health identifier — an identifier which could be used to create a national database containing the medical history of all Americans. As an OB/GYN with more than 30 years in private practice, I know the importance of preserving the sanctity of the physician- patient relationship. Oftentimes, effective treatment depends on a patient’s ability to place absolute trust in his or her doctor. What will happen to that trust when patients know that any and all information given to their doctors will be placed in a government accessible database?
physician
Government IDs and Identity Theft
January 6, 2005 2005 Ron Paul 5:8
The Identity Theft Prevention Act repeals those sections of federal law creating the national ID, as well as those sections of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 that require the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a uniform standard health identifier--an identifier which could be used to create a national database containing the medical history of all Americans. As an OB/GYN with more than 30 years in private practice, I know the importance of preserving the sanctity of the physician-patient relationship. Oftentimes, effective treatment depends on a patient’s ability to place absolute trust in his or her doctor. What will happen to that trust when patients know that any and all information given to their doctors will be placed in a government accessible database?
physician
America’s Foreign Policy Of Intervention
26 January 2005 2005 Ron Paul 6:5
As a physician, I would like to draw an analogy. In medicine, mistakes are made. Man is fallible. Misdiagnoses are made, incorrect treatments are given, and experimental trials of medicine are advocated. A good physician understands the imperfections in medical care, advises close follow-ups and double- checks the diagnoses, treatment and medication. Adjustments are made to assure the best results.
physician
Seniors’ Health Care Freedom Act
2 February 2005 2005 Ron Paul 15:1
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Seniors’ Health Care Freedom Act. This act protects seniors’ fundamental right to make their own health care decisions by repealing federal laws that interfere with seniors’ ability to form private contracts for medical services. This bill also repeals laws which force seniors into the Medicare program against their will. When Medicare was first established, seniors were promised that the program would be voluntary. In fact, the original Medicare legislation explicitly protected a senior’s right to seek out other forms of medical insurance. However, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 prohibits any physician who forms a private contract with a senior from filing any Medicare reimbursement claims for two years. As a practical matter, this means that seniors cannot form private contracts for health care services.
physician
Tribute To Dr. Andrew Messenger, A True Friend Of Liberty
6 April 2005 2005 Ron Paul 37:2
As a physician, I know Dr. Messenger is the type of doctor all of us would want to have to take care of us. He is capable, loves his work, genuinely cares about his patients, and is always available if someone needs him. In fact, he loves being a doctor so much that he did not retire until this past year at age 83.
physician
Mandatory Mental health Screening
24 June 2005 2005 Ron Paul 73:2
Mr. Chairman, as a physician, having practiced medicine for well over 30 years, let me tell Members, there is a crisis in this country. There is a crisis with illegal drugs, but there is a crisis in this country with an overuse of all drugs, especially in the area of psychiatry.
physician
Introducing The Comprehensive Health Care Act
27 June 2005 2005 Ron Paul 75:1
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, America faces a crisis in health care. Health care costs continue to rise, leaving many Americans unable to afford health insurance, while those with health care coverage, and their physicians, struggle under the control of managed-care “gatekeepers.” Obviously, fundamental health care reform should be one of Congress’ top priorities.
physician
Introducing The Comprehensive Health Care Act
27 June 2005 2005 Ron Paul 75:2
Unfortunately, most health care “reform” proposals either make marginal changes or exacerbate the problem. This is because they fail to address the root of the problem with health care, which is that government policies encourage excessive reliance on third-party payers. The excessive reliance on third-party payers removes all incentive from individual patients to concern themselves with health care costs. Laws and policies promoting Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) resulted from a desperate attempt to control spiraling costs. However, instead of promoting an efficient health care system, HMOs further took control over health care away from the individual patient and physician.
physician
Introducing The Comprehensive Health Care Act
27 June 2005 2005 Ron Paul 75:3
Furthermore, the predominance of third- party payers means there is effectively no market for individual health insurance policies, thus those whose employers cannot offer them health benefits must either pay exorbitant fees for health insurance or do without health insurance. Since most health care providers cater to those with health insurance, it is very difficult for the uninsured to find health care that meets their needs at an affordable price. The result is many of the uninsured turn to government-funded health care systems, or use their local emergency room as their primary care physician. The result of this is declining health for the uninsured and increased burden on taxpayer-financed health care system.
physician
Introducing The Freedom From Unnecessary Litigation Act
27 June 2005 2005 Ron Paul 77:2
Relying on negative outcomes insurance instead of litigation will also reduce the costs imposed on physicians, other health care providers, and hospitals by malpractice litigation. The Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act also promotes effective solutions to the malpractice crisis by making malpractice awards obtained through binding, voluntary arbitration tax-free.
physician
Introducing The Freedom From Unnecessary Litigation Act
27 June 2005 2005 Ron Paul 77:4
As is typical of Washington, most of the proposed solutions to the malpractice problem involve unconstitutional usurpations of areas best left to the states. These solutions also ignore the root cause of the litigation crisis: the shift away from treating the doctor-patient relationship as a contractual one to viewing it as one governed by regulations imposed by insurance company functionaries, politicians, government bureaucrats, and trial lawyers. There is no reason why questions of the assessment of liability and compensation cannot be determined by a private contractual agreement between physicians and patients. The Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act is designed to take a step toward resolving these problems through private contracts.
physician
Introducing The Freedom From Unnecessary Litigation Act
27 June 2005 2005 Ron Paul 77:5
Using insurance, private contracts, and binding arbitration to resolve medical disputes benefits patients, who receive full compensation in a timelier manner than under the current system. It also benefits physicians and hospitals, which are relieved of the costs associated with litigation. Since it will not cost as much to provide full compensation to an injured patient, these bills should result in a reduction of malpractice premiums. The Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act benefits everybody except those trial lawyers who profit from the current system. I hope all my colleagues will help end the malpractice crises while ensuring those harmed by medical injuries receive just compensation by cosponsoring my Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act.
physician
Introducing The Quality Health Care Coalition Act
27 June 2005 2005 Ron Paul 78:3
As an OB–GYN with over 30 years in practice, I am well aware of how young physicians coming out of medical school feel compelled to sign contracts with HMOs that may contain clauses that compromise their professional integrity. For example, many physicians are contractually forbidden from discussing all available treatment options with their patients because the HMO gatekeeper has deemed certain treatment options too expensive. In my own practice, I have tried hard not to sign contracts with any health insurance company that infringed on my ability to practice medicine in the best interests of my patients and I have always counseled my professional colleagues to do the same. Unfortunately, because of the dominance of the HMO in today’s health care market, many health care professionals cannot sustain a medical practice unless they agree to conform their practice to the dictates of some HMO.
physician
Introducing The Cancer And Terminal Illness Patient Health Care Act
27 June 2005 2005 Ron Paul 79:4
As a physician who has specialized in women’s health issues for decades, I know how critical it is that cancer patients and others suffering from terminal illnesses have the resources they need to combat these illnesses. The Cancer and Terminal Illness Patient Health Care Act provides a realistic way to help people suffering from cancer or other terminal illnesses receive quality health care.
physician
Statement on So-Called "Deficit Reduction Act"
November 18, 2005 2005 Ron Paul 123:6
Mr. Speaker, some of the entitlement reforms in HR 4241 are worthwhile. For example, I am hopeful the provision allowing states to require a co-payment for Medicaid will help relieve physicians of the burden of providing uncompensated care, which is an issue of great concern to physicians in my district. Still, I am concerned that the changes in pharmaceutical reimbursement proposed by the bill may unfairly impact independent pharmacies, and I am disappointed we will not get to vote on an alterative that would have the same budgetary impact without harming independent pharmacies.
physician
Introduction Of The Treat Physicians Fairly Act
2 March 2006 2006 Ron Paul 7:1
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Treat Physicians Fairly Act, legislation providing tax credits to physicians to compensate for the costs of providing uncompensated care. This legislation helps compensate medical professionals for the., costs imposed on them by federal laws forcing doctors to provide uncompensated medical care. The legislation also provides a tax deduction for hospitals that incur costs related to providing uncompensated care.
physician
Introduction Of The Treat Physicians Fairly Act
2 March 2006 2006 Ron Paul 7:2
Under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) physicians who work in emergency rooms are required to provide care, regardless of a person’s ability to pay, to anyone who comes into an emergency room. Hospitals are also required by law to bear the full costs of providing free care to anyone who seeks emergency care. Thus, EMTALA forces medical professionals and hospitals to bear the entire cost of caring for the indigent. According to the June 2/9, 2003 edition of AM News, emergency physicians lose an average of $138,000 in revenue per year because of EMTALA. EMTALA also forces physicians and hospitals to follow costly rules and regulations. Physicians can be fined $50,000 for technical EMTALA violations!
physician
Introduction Of The Treat Physicians Fairly Act
2 March 2006 2006 Ron Paul 7:3
The professional skills with which one’s earns a living are property. Therefore, the clear language of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment prevents Congress from mandating that physicians and hospitals bear the entire costs of providing health care to any group.
physician
Introduction Of The Treat Physicians Fairly Act
2 March 2006 2006 Ron Paul 7:4
Ironically, the perceived need to force doctors to provide medical care is itself the result of prior government interventions into the health care market. When I began practicing medicine, it was common for doctors to provide uncompensated care as a matter of charity. However, laws and regulations inflating the cost of medical services and imposing unreasonable liability standards on medical professionals even when they where acting in a volunteer capacity made offering free care cost prohibitive. At the same time, the increasing health care costs associated with the government- facilitated overreliance on third party payments priced more and more people out of the health care market. Thus, the government responded to problems created by its interventions by imposing the EMTALA mandate on physicians, in effect making health care professionals scapegoats for the harmful consequences of government health care polices.
physician
Introduction Of The Treat Physicians Fairly Act
2 March 2006 2006 Ron Paul 7:5
EMTALA could actually decrease the care available for low-income Americans at emergency rooms. This is because EMTALA discourages physicians from offering any emergency care. Many physicians in my district have told me that they are considering curtailing their practices, in part because of the costs associated with the EMTALA mandates. Many other physicians are even counseling younger people against entering the medical profession because of the way the Federal Government treats medical professionals. The tax credits created in the Treat Physicians Fairly Act will help mitigate some of the burden government policies place on physicians.
physician
Introduction Of The Treat Physicians Fairly Act
2 March 2006 2006 Ron Paul 7:6
The Treat Physicians Fairly Act does not remove any of EMTALA’s mandates; it simply provides that physicians can receive a tax credit for the costs of providing uncompensated care. This is a small step toward restoring fairness to physicians. Furthermore, by providing some compensation in the form of tax credits, the Treat Physicians Fairly Act helps remove the disincentives to remaining active in the medical profession built into the current EMTALA law. I hope my colleagues will take the first step toward removing the unconstitutional burden of providing uncompensated care by cosponsoring the Treat Physicians Fairly Act.
physician
Illegal Drug Problem — Part 1
9 March 2006 2006 Ron Paul 11:5
I, as a physician, am very much aware of the seriousness of it. I also agree that prescription drugs are probably every bit as bad or much worse, because there is so much dependency on psychotropic drugs.
physician
Why Are Americans So Angry?
June 29, 2006 2006 Ron Paul 52:45
It seems bizarre that it’s so unthinkable to change course if the current policy is failing. Our leaders are like a physician who makes a wrong diagnosis and prescribes the wrong medicine, but because of his ego can’t tell the patient he made a mistake. Instead he hopes the patient will get better on his own. But instead of improving, the patient gets worse from the medication wrongly prescribed. This would be abhorrent behavior in medicine, but tragically it is commonplace in politics.
physician
Introduction Of The Taxpayer Protection From Frivolous Litigation Act
28 September 2006 2006 Ron Paul 92:1
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to introduce the Physicians and Taxpayers’ Protection from Frivolous Litigation Act. This bill provides protection from frivolous lawsuits for physicians in cases involving Medicare and Medicaid, and in cases where physicians are obligated to provide treatment under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA).
physician
Introduction Of The Taxpayer Protection From Frivolous Litigation Act
28 September 2006 2006 Ron Paul 92:2
Among the legal reforms contained in this act are a loser pays rule providing for physicians to be reimbursed for costs incurred in defending against frivolous lawsuits; a tightening of statutes of limitations to ensure lawsuits are not just attempts to extort money for conditions that arose years after treatment was delivered; reforms of how putative damages are calculated in order to ensure the damages bear a relationship to the harm suffered, limitations on contingent fee contracts which encourage the filing of frivolous lawsuits, reforms to calculations of joint and several liability so a defendant is only liable for the harm he actually caused, and limitation of damages in cases where the plaintiff has already received compensation.
physician
Introduction Of The Taxpayer Protection From Frivolous Litigation Act
28 September 2006 2006 Ron Paul 92:3
Frivolous lawsuits and the accompanying increase in malpractice insurance payments have driven many physicians out of medical practice. The malpractice crisis has further increased the cost of health care by forcing physicians to practice defensive medicine. While most malpractice reform issues are properly addressed at the state level, Congress does have a duty to act to protect physicians from frivolous lawsuits stemming from cases involving federally funded programs or federal mandates. After all, these programs already impose tremendous costs on physicians. For example, Medicare imposes so many rules and regulations on health care providers that the Medicare code is actually larger than the infamous tax code!
physician
Introduction Of The Taxpayer Protection From Frivolous Litigation Act
28 September 2006 2006 Ron Paul 92:4
EMTALA imposes additional burdens on physicians. EMTALA forces physicians and hospitals to bear l00% of the costs of providing care to anyone who enters an emergency room, regardless of the person’s ability to pay. According to the June 29, 2003 edition of AM News, emergency physicians lose an average of $138,000 in revenue per year because of EMTALA. EMTALA also forces physicians and hospitals to follow costly rules and regulations. A physician can be fined $50,000 for a technical EMTALA violation.
physician
Introduction Of The Taxpayer Protection From Frivolous Litigation Act
28 September 2006 2006 Ron Paul 92:5
The combined effect of excessive regulations, inadequate reimbursements, and the risk of being subjected to unreasonable malpractice awards is endangering the most vulnerable people’s access to health care. I am aware of several physicians who have counseled young people not to enter the health care profession because of lawsuits, federal regulations, and low federal reimbursement rates. Other physicians are withdrawing from the Medicare and Medicaid programs and cutting their ties with emergency rooms in order to avoid the EMTALA mandates. Protecting physicians from frivolous lawsuits who are participating in federal programs or acting to fulfill federal mandates is an important step in removing federally created disincentives to providing care to elderly and low income people. I therefore call upon my colleagues to stand up for heath care providers, low income people, senior citizens, and taxpayers by cosponsoring the Physicians and Taxpayers’ Protection from Frivolous Litigation Act.
physician
Milton Friedman
6 December 2006 2006 Ron Paul 100:10
[From ANTIWAR.COM, Nov. 20, 2006] MILTON FRIEDMAN: A TRIBUTE “In the course of his [General Westmoreland’s] testimony, he made the statement that he did not want to command an army of mercenaries. I [Milton Friedman] stopped him and said, ‘General, would you rather command an army of slaves?’ He drew himself up and said, ‘I don’t like to hear our patriotic volunteers referred to as mercenaries.’ But I went on to say, ‘If they are mercenaries, then I, sir, am a mercenary professor, and you, sir, are a mercenary general; we are served by mercenary physicians, we use a mercenary lawyer, and we get our meat from a mercenary butcher.’ That was the last that we heard from the general about mercenaries.” — Milton and Rose Friedman, Two Lucky People, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998, p. 380.
physician
Introduction Of The Senior’s Health Care Freedom Act
4 January 2007 2007 Ron Paul 2:1
Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the Seniors’ Health Care Freedom Act. This act protects seniors’ fundamental right to make their own health care decisions by repeal federal laws that interfere with seniors’ ability to form private contracts for medical services. This bill also repeals laws which force seniors into the Medicare program against their will. When Medicare was first established, seniors were promised that the program would be voluntary. In fact, the original Medicare legislation explicitly protected a senior’s right to seek out other forms of medical insurance. However, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 prohibits any physician who forms a private contract with a senior from filing any Medicare reimbursement claims for two years. As a practical matter, this means that seniors cannot form private contracts for health care services.
physician
Identity Theft Protection Act
5 January 2007 2007 Ron Paul 8:10
This legislation not only repeals those sections of Federal law creating the national ID, it also repeals those sections of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 that require the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a uniform standard health identifier — an identifier which could be used to create a national database containing the medical history of all Americans. As an OB/GYN with more than 30 years in private practice, I know the importance of preserving the sanctity of the physician-patient relationship. Oftentimes, effective treatment depends on a patient’s ability to place absolute trust in his or her doctor. What will happen to that trust when patients know that any and all information given to their doctors will be placed in a government accessible database?
physician
National Instant Criminal Background Check System Improvements Amendments Act — Part 1
13 June 2007 2007 Ron Paul 61:5
Among the information that must be submitted to the database are medical, psychological, and drug treatment records that have traditionally been considered protected from disclosure under the physician/patient relationship, as well as records related to misdemeanor domestic violence. While supporters of H.R. 2640 say that there are restrictions on the use of this personal information, such restrictions did not stop the well-publicized IRS and FBI files privacy abuses by both Democratic and Republican administrations. Neither have such restrictions prevented children from being barred from flights because their names appeared on the massive terrorist watch list. We should not trick ourselves into believing that we can pick and choose which part of the Bill of Rights we support.
physician
Introducing The Quality Health Care Coalition Act
2 August 2007 2007 Ron Paul 84:3
As an OB–GYN who spent over 30 years practicing medicine, I am well aware of how young physicians coming out of medical school feel compelled to sign contracts with HMOs that may contain clauses that compromise their professional integrity. For example, many physicians are contractually forbidden from discussing all available treatment options with their patients because the HMO gatekeeper has deemed certain treatment options too expensive. In my own practice, I tried hard not to sign contracts with any health insurance company that infringed on my ability to practice medicine in the best interests of my patients and I always counseled my professional colleagues to do the same. Unfortunately, because of the dominance of the HMO in today’s health care market, many health care professionals cannot sustain a medical practice unless they agree to conform their practice to the dictates of some HMO.
physician
Introduction Of The Treat Physicians Fairly Act
2 August 2007 2007 Ron Paul 85:1
Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Treat Physicians Fairly Act, legislation providing tax credits to physicians to compensate for the costs of providing uncompensated care. This legislation helps compensate medical professionals for the costs imposed on them by Federal laws forcing doctors to provide uncompensated medical care. The legislation also provides a tax deduction for hospitals that incur costs related to providing uncompensated care.
physician
Introduction Of The Treat Physicians Fairly Act
2 August 2007 2007 Ron Paul 85:2
Under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) physicians who work in emergency rooms are required to provide care, regardless of a person’s ability to pay, to anyone who comes into an emergency room. Hospitals are also required by law to bear the full costs of providing free care to anyone who seeks emergency care. Thus, EMTALA forces medical professionals and hospitals to bear the entire cost of caring for the indigent. According to the June 2/9, 2003 edition of AM News, emergency physicians lose an average of $138,000 in revenue per year because of EMTALA. EMTALA also forces physicians and hospitals to follow costly rules and regulations. Physicians can be fined $50,000 for technical EMTALA violations.
physician
Introduction Of The Treat Physicians Fairly Act
2 August 2007 2007 Ron Paul 85:3
The professional skills with which one earns a living are property. Therefore, the clear language of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment prevents Congress from mandating that physicians and hospitals bear the entire costs of providing health care to any group.
physician
Introduction Of The Treat Physicians Fairly Act
2 August 2007 2007 Ron Paul 85:4
Ironically, the perceived need to force doctors to provide medical care is itself the result of prior government interventions into the health care market. When I began practicing medicine, it was common for doctors to provide uncompensated care as a matter of charity. However, laws and regulations inflating the cost of medical services and imposing unreasonable liability standards on medical professionals even when they were acting in a volunteer capacity made offering free care cost prohibitive. At the same time, the increasing health care costs associated with the government- facilitated overreliance on third party payments priced more and more people out of the health care market. Thus, the government responded to problems created by its interventions by imposing the EMTALA mandate on physicians, in effect making health care professionals scapegoats for the harmful consequences of government health care policies.
physician
Introduction Of The Treat Physicians Fairly Act
2 August 2007 2007 Ron Paul 85:5
EMTALA could actually decrease the care available for low-income Americans at emergency rooms. This is because EMTALA discourages physicians from offering any emergency care. Many physicians in my district have told me that they are considering curtailing their practices, in part because of the costs associated with the EMTALA mandates. Many other physicians are even counseling younger people against entering the medical profession because of the way the Federal Government treats medical professionals. The tax credits created in the Treat Physicians Fairly Act will help mitigate some of the burden government policies place on physicians.
physician
Introduction Of The Treat Physicians Fairly Act
2 August 2007 2007 Ron Paul 85:6
The Treat Physicians Fairly Act does not remove any of EMTALA’s mandates; it simply provides that physicians can receive a tax credit for the costs of providing uncompensated care. This is a small step toward restoring fairness to physicians. Furthermore, by providing some compensation in the form of tax credits, the Treat Physicians Fairly Act helps remove the disincentives to remaining active in the medical profession built into the current EMTALA law. I hope my colleagues will take the first step toward removing the unconstitutional burden of providing uncompensated care by cosponsoring the Treat Physicians Fairly Act.
physician
Introducing The Comprehensive Health Care Act
2 August 2007 2007 Ron Paul 86:1
Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, America faces a crisis in health care. Health care costs continue to rise, leaving many Americans unable to afford health insurance, while those with health care coverage, and their physicians, struggle under the control of managed-care “gatekeepers.” Obviously, fundamental health care reform should be one of Congress’ top priorities.
physician
Introducing The Comprehensive Health Care Act
2 August 2007 2007 Ron Paul 86:2
Unfortunately, most health care “reform” proposals either make marginal changes or exacerbate the problem. This is because they fail to address the root of the problem with health care, which is that government polices encourage excessive reliance on third-party payers. The excessive reliance on third-party payers removes all incentive from individual patients to concern themselves with health care costs. Laws and policies promoting Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) resulted from a desperate attempt to control spiraling costs. However, instead of promoting an efficient health care system, HMOs further took control over health care away from the individual patient and physician.
physician
Introducing The Comprehensive Health Care Act
2 August 2007 2007 Ron Paul 86:3
Furthermore, the predominance of third- party payers means there is effectively no market for individual health insurance polices, thus those whose employers cannot offer them health benefits must either pay exorbitant fees for health insurance or do without health insurance. Since most health care providers cater to those with health insurance, it is very difficult for the uninsured to find health care that meets their needs at an affordable price. The result is many of the uninsured turn to government-funded health care systems, or use their local emergency room as their primary care physician. The result of this is declining health for the uninsured and increased burden on taxpayer-financed health care system.
physician
Introduction Of The Freedom From Unnecessary Litigation Act
2 August 2007 2007 Ron Paul 87:2
Relying on negative outcomes insurance instead of litigation will also reduce the costs imposed on physicians, other health care providers, and hospitals by malpractice litigation. The Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act also promotes effective solutions to the malpractice crisis by making malpractice awards obtained through binding, voluntary arbitration tax-free.
physician
Introduction Of The Freedom From Unnecessary Litigation Act
2 August 2007 2007 Ron Paul 87:4
As is typical of Washington, most of the proposed solutions to the malpractice problem involve unconstitutional usurpations of areas best left to the States. These solutions also ignore the root cause of the litigation crisis: the shift away from treating the doctor-patient relationship as a contractual one to viewing it as one governed by regulations imposed by insurance company functionaries, politicians, government bureaucrats, and trial lawyers. There is no reason why questions of the assessment of liability and compensation cannot be determined by a private contractual agreement between physicians and patients. The Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act is designed to take a step toward resolving these problems through private contracts.
physician
Introduction Of The Freedom From Unnecessary Litigation Act
2 August 2007 2007 Ron Paul 87:5
Using insurance, private contracts, and binding arbitration to resolve medical disputes benefits patients, who receive full compensation in a timelier manner than under the current system. It also benefits physicians and hospitals, which are relieved of the costs associated with litigation. Since it will not cost as much to provide full compensation to an injured patient, these bills should result in a reduction of malpractice premiums. The Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act benefits everybody except those trial lawyers who profit from the current system. I hope all my colleagues will help end the malpractice crises while ensuring those harmed by medical injuries receive just compensation by cosponsoring my Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act.
physician
Introducing The Cancer And Terminal Illness Patient Health Care Act
13 December 2007 2007 Ron Paul 109:4
As a physician who has specialized in women’s health issues for decades, I know how critical it is that cancer patients and others suffering from terminal illnesses have the resources they need to combat these illnesses. The Cancer and Terminal Illness Patient Health Care Act provides a realistic way to help people suffering from cancer or other terminal illnesses receive quality health care.
physician
NEWBORN SCREENING SAVES LIVES ACT OF 2007
8 April 2008 2008 Ron Paul 20:3
As the Federal Government assumes more control over health care, medical privacy has increasingly come under assault. Those of us in the medical profession should be particularly concerned about policies allowing Government officials and State-favored interests to access our medical records without our consent. After all, patient confidentiality is the basis of the trust that must underline a positive physician-patient relationship. Yet my review of S. 1858 indicates the drafters of the legislation made no effort to ensure these newborn screening programs do not violate the privacy rights of parents and children.
physician
PROTECTING THE MEDICAID SAFETY NET ACT OF 2008
22 April 2008 2008 Ron Paul 25:1
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise in reluctant opposition to H.R. 5613, legislation halting the implementation of a package of new Medicaid rules. The proponents of H.R. 5613 are correct that halting some of these rules will protect needed Medicaid reimbursements for health care providers. However, some of the rules that H.R. 5613 blocks address abuses of Federal Medicaid dollars that should be halted. Greater efforts to ensure Medicaid resources are properly spent will help those health care providers most in need of continued support from the Medicaid program, since a Medicaid dollar lost to fraud and abuse is a dollar that cannot be spent helping hospitals and physicians provide health care to the poor.
physician
MEDICARE IMPROVEMENTS FOR PATIENTS AND PROVIDERS ACT OF 2008
24 June 2008 2008 Ron Paul 39:1
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, Congress is once again forsaking an opportunity to begin addressing Medicare’s long-term fiscal problems. Instead, the legislation before us today, while not without its merits, exacerbates the problems facing Medicare by giving new authority to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), even though CMS’s excessive power is a major reason why so many physicians and patients are dissatisfied with the current Medicare system.
physician
MEDICARE IMPROVEMENTS FOR PATIENTS AND PROVIDERS ACT OF 2008
24 June 2008 2008 Ron Paul 39:3
I certainly recognize the need to make adjustments in physicians’ payments. Many physicians are already losing money treating Medicare patients, thanks to CMS’s low reimbursements and the cost of having to comply with CMS’s numerous rules and regulations. Unless Congress acts, many physicians will simply refuse to see Medicare patients. I think we all agree that driving physicians out of the Medicare program is not the proper way to reform the system.
physician
MEDICARE IMPROVEMENTS FOR PATIENTS AND PROVIDERS ACT OF 2008
24 June 2008 2008 Ron Paul 39:4
Therefore, if H.R. 6331 only contained the provisions dealing with the physicians’ rate cut, I would vote for it. However, H.R. 6331 further endangers Medicare’s fiscal situation by giving almost $20 billion in new funds to CMS, and giving CMS new regulatory authority.
physician
INTRODUCTION OF THE IDENTITY THEFT PREVENTION ACT
January 6, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 4:10
This legislation not only repeals those sections of federal law creating the national ID, it also repeals those sections of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 that require the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a uniform standard health identifier – an identifier which could be used to create a national database containing the medical history of all Americans. As an OB/GYN with more than 30 years in private practice, I know the importance of preserving the sanctity of the physician-patient relationship. Oftentimes, effective treatment depends on a patient’s ability to place absolute trust in his or her doctor. What will happen to that trust when patients know that any and all information given to their doctors will be placed in a government accessible database?
physician
THE SENIORS’ HEALTH CARE FREEDOM ACT
January 6, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 6:1
Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the Seniors’ Health Care Freedom Act. This act protects seniors’ fundamental right to make their own health care decisions by repealing federal laws that interfere with seniors’ ability to form private contracts for medical services. This bill also repeals laws which force seniors into the Medicare program against their will. When Medicare was first established, seniors were promised that the program would be voluntary. In fact, the original Medicare legislation explicitly protected a senior’s right to seek out other forms of medical insurance. However, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 prohibits any physician who forms a private contract with a senior from filing any Medicare reimbursement claims for two years. As a practical matter, this means that seniors cannot form private contracts for health care services.
physician
COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH CARE REFORM ACT
March 12, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 28:1
Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, America faces a crisis in health care. Health care costs continue to rise while physicians and patients struggle under the control of managed-care “gatekeepers.” Obviously, fundamental health care reform should be one of Congress’ top priorities.
physician
COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH CARE REFORM ACT
March 12, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 28:2
Unfortunately, most health care “reform” proposals either make marginal changes or exacerbate the problem. This is because they fail to address the root of the problem with health care, which is that government polices encourage excessive reliance on third-party payers. The excessive reliance on third-party payers removes all incentive from individual patients to concern themselves with health care costs. Laws and policies promoting Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) resulted from a desperate attempt to control spiraling costs. However, instead of promoting an efficient health care system, HMOs further took control over health care away from the individual patient and physician.
physician
INTRODUCING THE QUALITY HEALTH CARE COALITION ACT
March 12, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 29:3
As an OB–GYN who spent over 30 years practicing medicine, I am well aware of how young physicians coming out of medical school feel compelled to sign contracts with HMOs that may contain clauses that compromise their professional integrity. For example, many physicians are contractually forbidden from discussing all available treatment options with their patients because the HMO gatekeeper has deemed certain treatment options too expensive. In my own practice, I tried hard not to sign contracts with any health insurance company that infringed on my ability to practice medicine in the best interests of my patients and I always counseled my professional colleagues to do the same. Unfortunately, because of the dominance of the HMO in today’s health care market, many health care professionals cannot sustain a medical practice unless they agree to conform their practice to the dictates of some HMO.
physician
TREAT PHYSICIANS FAIRLY ACT
March 12, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 30:1
Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Treat Physicians Fairly Act, legislation providing tax credits to physicians to compensate for the costs of providing uncompensated care. This legislation helps compensate medical professionals for the costs imposed on them by federal laws forcing doctors to provide uncompensated medical care. The legislation also provides a tax deduction for hospitals who incur costs related to providing uncompensated care.
physician
TREAT PHYSICIANS FAIRLY ACT
March 12, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 30:2
Under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) physicians who work in emergency rooms, as well as the hospitals, are required to provide care without seeking compensation to anyone who comes into an emergency room. Thus, EMTALA forces medical professionals and hospitals to bear the entire cost of caring for the indigent. According to the June 2/9, 2003 edition of AM News, emergency physicians lose an average of $138,000 per year because of EMTALA. EMTALA also forces physicians and hospitals to follow costly rules and regulations, and can be fined $50,000 for failure to be in technical compliance with EMTALA!
physician
TREAT PHYSICIANS FAIRLY ACT
March 12, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 30:3
Forcing physicians to offer their services without providing any form of compensation is a blatant violation of the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment. After all, the professional skills with which one earns a living are a form of property. Therefore, legislation, such as EMTALA, which forces individuals to use their professional skills without compensation is a taking of private property. Regardless of whether the federal government has the constitutional authority to establish programs providing free-or-reduced health care for the indignant, the clear language of the takings clause prevents Congress from placing the entire burden of these programs on the medical profession.
physician
TREAT PHYSICIANS FAIRLY ACT
March 12, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 30:4
Ironically, the perceived need to force doctors to provide medical care is itself the result of prior government interventions into the health care market. When I began practicing, it was common for doctors to provide uncompensated care as a matter of charity. However, government laws and regulations inflating the cost of medical services and imposing unreasonable liability standards on medical professionals even when they where acting in a volunteer capacity made offering free care cost prohibitive. At the same time, the increased health care costs associated with the government-facilitated over-reliance in third party payments priced more and more people out of the health care market. Thus, the government responded to problems created by their interventions by imposing EMTALA mandate on physicians, in effect making the health care profession scapegoats for the unintended consequences of failed government health care policies.
physician
TREAT PHYSICIANS FAIRLY ACT
March 12, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 30:5
EMTALA itself is having unintended consequences that could result in less care availability for low-income Americans at emergency rooms. This is because EMTALA provides a disincentive for physicians from offering any emergency care. Many physicians have told me in my district that they are considering curtailing their practices, in part because of the costs associated with the EMTALA mandates. Many other physicians are even counseling younger people against entering the medical profession because of the way the federal government treats medical professionals! The tax credit of the Treat Physicians Fairly Act will help mitigate some of these unintended consequences.
physician
TREAT PHYSICIANS FAIRLY ACT
March 12, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 30:6
The Treat Physicians Fairly Act does not remove any of EMTALA’s mandates; it simply provides that physicians can receive a tax credit for the costs of providing uncompensated care. This is a small step toward restoring fairness to the physicians. Furthermore, by providing some compensation in the form of tax credits, the Treat Physicians Fairly Act helps remove the disincentives to remaining active in the medical profession built into the current EMTALA law. I hope my colleagues will take the first step toward removing the unconstitutional burden of providing uncompensated care by cosponsoring the Treat Physicians Fairly Act.
physician
INTRODUCTION OF THE FREEDOM FROM UNNECESSARY LITIGATION ACT
March 12, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 32:2
Relying on negative outcomes insurance instead of litigation will also reduce the costs imposed on physicians, other health care providers, and hospitals by malpractice litigation. The Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act also promotes effective solutions to the malpractice crisis by making malpractice awards obtained through binding, voluntary arbitration tax-free.
physician
INTRODUCTION OF THE FREEDOM FROM UNNECESSARY LITIGATION ACT
March 12, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 32:4
As is typical of Washington, most of the proposed solutions to the malpractice problem involve unconstitutional usurpations of areas best left to the states. These solutions also ignore the root cause of the litigation crisis: the shift away from treating the doctor-patient relationship as a contractual one to viewing it as one governed by regulations imposed by insurance company functionaries, politicians, government bureaucrats, and trial lawyers. There is no reason why questions of the assessment of liability and compensation cannot be determined by a private contractual agreement between physicians and patients. The Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act is designed to take a step toward resolving these problems through private contracts.
physician
INTRODUCTION OF THE FREEDOM FROM UNNECESSARY LITIGATION ACT
March 12, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 32:5
Using insurance, private contracts, and binding arbitration to resolve medical disputes benefits patients, who receive full compensation in a timelier manner than under the current system. It also benefits physicians and hospitals, which are relieved of the costs associated with litigation. Since it will not cost as much to provide full compensation to an injured patient, these bills should result in a reduction of malpractice premiums. The Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act benefits everybody except those trial lawyers who profit from the current system. I hope all my colleagues will help end the malpractice crises while ensuring those harmed by medical injuries receive just compensation by cosponsoring my Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act.
physician
Statement on Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Act
March 26, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 39:1
Madame Speaker, America faces a crisis in health care. Health care costs continue to rise while physicians and patients struggle under the control of managed-care “gatekeepers.” Obviously, fundamental health care reform should be one of Congress’ top priorities.
physician
Statement on Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Act
March 26, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 39:2
Unfortunately, most health care “reform” proposals either make marginal changes or exacerbate the problem. This is because they fail to address the root of the problem with health care, which is that government polices encourage excessive reliance on third-party payers. The excessive reliance on third-party payers removes all incentive from individual patients to concern themselves with health care costs. Laws and policies promoting Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) resulted from a desperate attempt to control spiraling costs. However, instead of promoting an efficient health care system, HMOs further took control over health care away from the individual patient and physician.
physician
INTRODUCTION OF COERCION IS NOT HEALTH CARE
May 21, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 58:5
When the cost of government-mandated insurance proves to be an unsustainable burden on individuals and small employers, and the government, Congress will likely impose price controls on medical treatments, and even go so far as to limit what procedures and treatments will be reimbursed by the mandatory insurance. The result will be an increasing number of providers turning to “cash only” practices, thus making it difficult for those relying on the government-mandated insurance to find health care. Anyone who doubts that result should consider the increasing number of physicians who are withdrawing from the Medicare program because of the low reimbursement and constant bureaucratic harassment from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
physician
INTRODUCING THE PROTECT PATIENTS’ AND PHYSICIANS’ PRIVACY ACT
May 21, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 59:1
Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the Protect Patients’ and Physicians’ Privacy Act. This legislation protects medical privacy, as well as quality health care, by allowing patients and physicians to opt out of any federally mandated, created, or funded electronic medical records system. The bill also repeals the sections of Federal law establishing a “unique health identifier” and requires patient consent before any electronic medical records can be released to a third party.
physician
INTRODUCING THE PROTECT PATIENTS’ AND PHYSICIANS’ PRIVACY ACT
May 21, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 59:6
As an OB/GYN with over 30 years of experience in private practice, I understand that one of the foundations of quality health care is the patient’s confidence that all information the patient shares with his or her health care provider will remain confidential. Forcing physicians to place their patients’ medical records in a system without adequate privacy protection undermines that confidence, and thus undermines effective medical treatment.
physician
INTRODUCING THE PROTECT PATIENTS’ AND PHYSICIANS’ PRIVACY ACT
May 21, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 59:7
A physician opt out is also necessary in order to allow physicians to escape from the inefficiencies and other problems that are sure to occur in the implementation and management of the Federal system. Contrary to the claims of the mandatory system’s proponents, it is highly unlikely an efficient system of mandatory electronic health records can be established by the Government.
physician
INTRODUCING THE PROTECT PATIENTS’ AND PHYSICIANS’ PRIVACY ACT
May 21, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 59:8
Many health technology experts have warned of the problems that will accompany the system of mandatory electronic medical records. For example, David Kibbe, a top technology adviser to the American Academy of Family Physicians, warned President Obama in an open letter late last year that existing medical software is often poorly designed and does a poor job of exchanging information. Allowing physicians to opt out provides a safety device to ensure that physicians can avoid the problems that will inevitably accompany the government-mandated system.
physician
INTRODUCING THE PROTECT PATIENTS’ AND PHYSICIANS’ PRIVACY ACT
May 21, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 59:9
Madam Speaker, allowing patients and providers to opt out of the electronic medical records system will in no way harm the practice of medicine or the development of an efficient system of keeping medical records. Instead, it will enhance these worthy goals by ensuring patients and physicians can escape the inefficient, one-size-fits-all government- mandated system. By creating a market for alternatives to the government system, the op- out ensures that private businesses can work to develop systems that meet the demands for an efficient system of electronic records that protects patients’ privacy. I urge my colleagues to stand up for privacy and quality health care by cosponsoring the Protect Patients’ and Physicians’ Privacy Act.
physician
MORE GOVERNMENT WON’T HELP
September 23, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 90:18
Number 15, there must be more competition for individuals entering into the medical field. Licensing strictly limits the number of individuals who can provide patient care. A lot of problems were created in the 20th century as a consequence of the Flexner Report in 1910, which was financed by the Carnegie Foundation and strongly supported by the AMA. Many medical schools were closed, and the number of doctors was drastically reduced. The motivation was to close down medical schools that catered to women, minorities, and especially homeopathy. We continue to suffer from these changes, which were designed to protect physicians’ income and promote allopathic medicine over the natural cures and prevention of homeopathic medicine.
physician
- The China Syndrome: Let's not be hasty with a prescription
20 June 1997 Texas Straight Talk 20 June 1997 verse 5 ... Cached
As a physician I know that what might at first seem to be a cure for a particular ailment is really sometimes not a cure at all. In fact, going with a gut reaction to prescribe a cure can do more harm than the original problem.
physician
1998 is a new chance to change government for better
05 January 1998 Texas Straight Talk 05 January 1998 verse 10 ... Cached
And legislation like HR 2868, the Consumer Health Free Speech Act. This legislation would allow individuals the opportunity to decide for themselves what to believe about dietary supplements, health foods and herbs. Scientific research in nutrition over the past few years had demonstrated how various foods and other dietary supplements are safe and effective in preventing or mitigating diseases. Currently, however, disclosure of these well-documented statements triggers extensive regulation by the FDA, which is based more on protecting the interests of big pharmaceutical companies than sound science and good health. As a physician, I want to make sure individuals can examine the truthful claims of all sides about the positive and negative benefits of products sold over-the-counter in grocery and health food stores.
physician
Government prescription for health is bad medicine
19 January 1998 Texas Straight Talk 19 January 1998 verse 5 ... Cached
As a physician, I often recommend to my patients that they never just pursue any one plan for fitness and nutrition; intelligent study, moderation and variety are, indeed, the spice of life and health. But there is an unfortunate trend toward restricting the access people have to factual information about alternatives to commonly accepted nutritional programs.
physician
No such thing as a free (government) needle
27 April 1998 Texas Straight Talk 27 April 1998 verse 4 ... Cached
As a physician, I can say with no uncertainty that it is far better for a person to use a sterile needle rather than a dirty one. Of course, it is also medically much better for someone to avoid putting harmful or addictive substances into their blood stream, or engage in risky sexual behavior.
physician
Paul legislation will stop national ID card
13 July 1998 Texas Straight Talk 13 July 1998 verse 6 ... Cached
Under the current state of the law, the citizens of states which have drivers' licenses that do not conform to the federal standards by October 1, 2000, will find themselves essentially stripped of their ability to participate in life as we know it. On that date, Americans will not be able to get a job, open a bank account, apply for Social Security or Medicare, exercise their Second Amendment rights, or even take an airplane flight, unless they can produce a state-issued ID that conforms to the federal specifications. Further, under the terms of the 1996 Kennedy-Kassebaum health-care law, Americans may be forced to present this federally-approved drivers' license before consulting a physician for medical treatment!
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MSAs best option for better health care
10 August 1998 Texas Straight Talk 10 August 1998 verse 4 ... Cached
As a physician, I am painfully aware of the shortcomings of our medical system. But few are as dangerous as the rush towards managed care.
physician
MSAs best option for better health care
10 August 1998 Texas Straight Talk 10 August 1998 verse 9 ... Cached
The MSA will help keep down the costs associated with routine medical care simply because the physicians and hospitals will now have an incentive to offer the best service at the best price. And as the patient is able to negotiate with the doctor, better arrangements best suited for that patient can be made.
physician
Inconsistency must be addressed
14 September 1998 Texas Straight Talk 14 September 1998 verse 6 ... Cached
As a physician, I know all too well the wretched effects which reckless use of narcotic and mind-altering substances can have on people. I have seen the helpless children born to alcohol- and drug-addicted parents. And I have even witnessed the destruction of families in my community at the hands of those using these substances.
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Free speech is good medicine
07 December 1998 Texas Straight Talk 07 December 1998 verse 9 ... Cached
This harm comes from limiting the information which consumers have before them. It foolish to think that any one doctor is aware of everything on the market which can help a patient maintain their good health, or recover from illness more rapidly. As a physician, I have always preferred working with an informed patient. They would sometimes be aware of new treatments, medicines or advances that I may have not yet studied. Sometimes that information would lead to new treatment for that patient, other times not, but the more information and choices available to the patient, the better.
physician
Free speech is good medicine
07 December 1998 Texas Straight Talk 07 December 1998 verse 17 ... Cached
To think the conscientious American cannot also examine the claims of vitamin manufacturers and make informed decisions for personal use in consultation with her physician, family, friends and others is recklessly condescending.
physician
Medical costs can be cut with freedom
14 December 1998 Texas Straight Talk 14 December 1998 verse 12 ... Cached
The insurers and HMOs only make matters worse by further restricting the consumer's choices and limiting the services a physician in their group can offer. The incentive to cut costs is lost, as physicians (now working essentially as low-level employees) seek to make as much as they can in the new corporate environment, will charge the maximum the HMOs allow.
physician
Medical costs can be cut with freedom
14 December 1998 Texas Straight Talk 14 December 1998 verse 16 ... Cached
Under an MSA system, a consumer could save pre-tax dollars in a special account. Those dollars would be used to pay for health care expenses, with the patient negotiating directly with the physician of their choice for the care they choose without regard to HMO rules or a bureaucrat's decision. The incentive for the physician is getting paid in cash as the service is rendered, rather than waiting months for an HMO or insurance provider's billing cycle.
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Stopping the Surveillance State
18 January 1999 Texas Straight Talk 18 January 1999 verse 8 ... Cached
Another section of the bill will stop schemes such as the attempt to assign every American a "unique health identifier." This identifier would logically lead to a national database containing the detailed medical history of all Americans. As a practicing OB/GYN for more than 30 years, I know well the importance of preserving the sanctity and private nature of the physician-patient relationship. Oftentimes, effective treatment depends on the patient placing absolute trust in the doctor not to discuss with anyone her health problems. What will happen to that trust when patients know that all information given to their doctor must be placed in a government accessible database?
physician
Going from bad to worse
17 May 1999 Texas Straight Talk 17 May 1999 verse 5 ... Cached
As a physician, I have long abhorred the outrageous abuse of our legal system by unscrupulous attorneys filing frivolous lawsuits. We all know well the infamous spilt coffee case, and there are dozens more.
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A flood of bills of rights
16 August 1999 Texas Straight Talk 16 August 1999 verse 12 ... Cached
Economic principles determine efficiency of markets, even the medical market; but not our emotional experiences. As a physician, I know that the most efficient manner to deliver medical services, as it is with goods and other services, is determined by the degree to which the market is allowed to operate.
physician
Dangerous to our health
11 October 1999 Texas Straight Talk 11 October 1999 verse 6 ... Cached
No one disputes the diagnosis: American health care is in lousy shape. As a practicing physician for more than 30 years, I find the pervasiveness of managed care troubling, if not reckless.
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Best medicine is liberty
18 October 1999 Texas Straight Talk 18 October 1999 verse 5 ... Cached
Yet there are many whose ideas to fix the system will actually make the situation worse for everyone, and especially those who can least afford more costly social experiments. As a physician with more than 30 years of private practice, I have too often found that the very people most hurt by "reforms" in health care are the same ones politicians and pundits claimed they were going to help.
physician
Best medicine is liberty
18 October 1999 Texas Straight Talk 18 October 1999 verse 9 ... Cached
Yet rather than reverse the trend and liberate patients, physicians and the health care market, many in Congress would make the situation worse by adding new regulations and new fees, while eroding services and limiting choices.
physician
Best medicine is liberty
18 October 1999 Texas Straight Talk 18 October 1999 verse 14 ... Cached
The most important thing Congress can do is to stop practicing medicine and allow market forces to operate by allowing Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) for everyone. Patient motivation to save and shop would be a major force in reducing cost, as physicians would once again negotiate fees with patients. MSAs would help satisfy the American's people's desire to control their own health care and provide incentives for consumers to take more responsibility for their care. MSAs will also allow those consumers to do business with insurance provider of their choice, who will cover the needs and procedures for which that family is willing and able to pay.
physician
Medical Privacy Threatened
07 February 2000 Texas Straight Talk 07 February 2000 verse 11 ... Cached
Before implementing these rules, HHS must consider what will happen to the trust between patients and physicians when patients know that any and all information given their doctor may be placed in a government database, seen by medical researchers, or handed over to government agents without a warrant. For more information on how to submit comments to the Department of Health and Human Services, feel free to contact my congressional staff by email at rep.paul@mail.house.gov. Please use the words "HHS Regs" in the subject line, and make sure to include your email address in your message. You may also contact my office by phone at 202-225-2831.
physician
Answering the Middle Class Squeeze
27 March 2000 Texas Straight Talk 27 March 2000 verse 8 ... Cached
Of course it is true that the people who get hurt most in tough times are the middle class, particularly those at the lower end of the wage scale. But as a physician I know that I must diagnose an illness before I can treat a patient.
physician
The Cost of War
01 May 2000 Texas Straight Talk 01 May 2000 verse 9 ... Cached
As a physician I am most concerned with public health, so let's begin there. Because of repeated bombings targeted against chemical factories, NATO has turned Serbia into a sort of toxic soup. The soil is laced with toxins. Because of embargoes, the locals must largely eat locally grown food, and it is contaminated. People fear that feeding their children is akin to poisoning them. Medical personnel point out that the most certain effect of the bombings will be an increase in cancer rates, not just now but literally for generations to come.
physician
A Big Win for Medical Privacy in Congress
19 June 2000 Texas Straight Talk 19 June 2000 verse 4 ... Cached
As a doctor, I know how crucial it is to insure people's privacy when speaking to their physicians. Unless Congress permanently forbids the development of a medical ID, Americans may not be able to talk to their doctors about matters that are of an utmost private nature without fear of having this information accessed by government agencies! As an OB/GYN with more than 30 years experience in private practice, I know better than most the importance of preserving the sanctity of the physician-patient relationship. What happens to that trust when patients know any and all information given to their doctor will be placed in a database accessible by anyone who knows the patient's 'unique personal identifier?
physician
Long and Short Term Solutions to the Rising Cost of Prescription Drugs
07 August 2000 Texas Straight Talk 07 August 2000 verse 3 ... Cached
As a physician, I know how vitally important prescription medications are to senior citizens in Texas and across the nation. Many seniors in my district are struggling to pay for their prescription drugs, which can cost hundreds of dollars or more each month. Seniors on a fixed income often face the dilemma of foregoing other necessities so they can pay for medicines. Older Americans who once relied on Social Security and Medicare to provide funds for their health care now find themselves spending more and more out-of-pocket to cover deductibles and quickly rising drug costs. It is simply not right that we continue to tax Social Security benefits at a time when so many seniors are struggling to pay for needed medicines.
physician
Help for Those with Terminal Illnesses
21 August 2000 Texas Straight Talk 21 August 2000 verse 4 ... Cached
As a physician, I am especially concerned with those who face terrible terminal illnesses such as cancer, AIDS, and heart disease. Patients facing terminal illnesses need all of their financial resources available to them to fight their disease and pay their medical bills. Yet we continue to impose payroll taxes on citizens with terminal illnesses to fund a retirement they may never live to see.
physician
Drug Re-Importation Will Lower Prescription Drug Costs
09 October 2000 Texas Straight Talk 09 October 2000 verse 5 ... Cached
Many widely used drugs made by American companies sell for far less in Europe, Canada, and Mexico. Undoubtedly you have seen news reports featuring seniors taking bus trips across the Mexican or Canadian borders to buy their needed drugs. As a physician and member of Congress, this greatly disturbs me. U.S. citizens never should be forced to leave their own country simply to obtain affordable prescription drugs.
physician
Government Poses the Greatest Threat to our Privacy
23 October 2000 Texas Straight Talk 23 October 2000 verse 10 ... Cached
The administration and federal bureaucrats will continue to look for ways to increase government monitoring of citizens. Recently, the administration proposed and fought to enact legislation creating a "uniform standard health identifier," clearly as part of a larger plan to create a national medical system. As a physician and privacy advocate, I know how dangerous a federal medical ID would be. The sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship would be destroyed if the patient knew his or her medical problems would be entered into a federal database. The government has no business knowing your medical history. Virtually all Americans agree with me, because public support for my opposition to the medical ID proposal was overwhelming. Ultimately, the medical ID plan was eliminated by my amendment to a larger bill.
physician
The Fight for Medical Privacy Continues in Washington
26 March 2001 Texas Straight Talk 26 March 2001 verse 5 ... Cached
As a physician, I cannot imagine providing my patients' medical records to police as evidence for a criminal prosecution. Like most doctors, I adhere to a strict policy of maintaining patient confidentiality. Medical privacy has existed for centuries between doctors and patients, without government interference. However, the drug war has provided the ever-growing federal government with new justifications to invade your once-private medical history.
physician
Medical Privacy Threatened by Federal Health Bureaucrats
18 June 2001 Texas Straight Talk 18 June 2001 verse 4 ... Cached
The most dangerous aspect of the new regulations is the implementation of a national medical record database. All health care providers, including private physicians, insurance companies, and HMOs, will be forced to use a standard data format for patient records. Once standardized information is entered into a networked government database, it will be virtually impossible to prevent widespread dissemination of that information. If the federal government really seeks to protect medical privacy, why it is so eager to have its citizens' medical records easily available in one centralized database? The truth is that a centralized database will make it far easier for both government agencies and private companies to access your health records.
physician
Medical Privacy Threatened by Federal Health Bureaucrats
18 June 2001 Texas Straight Talk 18 June 2001 verse 5 ... Cached
HHS officials have sought to reassure the public that the new rules require patient consent before physicians may release medical information. Unfortunately, however, the consent protection has very limited effect. First, your physician likely will refuse to treat you if you decline consent to share your records. This is almost certain to happen, because heavy fines (and even jail sentences!) will be imposed on physicians who don't exactly follow the new regulations. Furthermore, there are very broad exceptions to the consent rule for ill-defined categories such as "oversight of the health care system," "public health," "law enforcement activities," "judicial and administrative proceedings," and "national defense and security." These exceptions give the government almost unlimited justifications to access your private records not only without your consent, but also without your knowledge. The law enforcement exception is particularly troubling, because the 4th Amendment clearly prohibits warrantless searches of medical records by government officials. So while on the surface the new rules may seem to give patients some control, the reality is that the consent protection is largely meaningless.
physician
Medical Privacy Threatened by Federal Health Bureaucrats
18 June 2001 Texas Straight Talk 18 June 2001 verse 6 ... Cached
We should remember that private physicians have maintained patient privacy for centuries without government involvement, relying instead on personal conviction, the Hippocratic Oath, and professional standards. Patients once knew without question that anything they told their doctor would remain confidential. However, the physician/patient relationship is certain to change for the worse when control over patient records is transferred from medical professionals to government agencies. When patients know that their sensitive medical information will be turned over to government agencies or placed in a national database, they inevitably will be less open and honest when seeking medical care. Patients with drug and alcohol problems, mental illnesses, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV, or other stigmatized health concerns will be especially reluctant to seek treatment. The inevitable result will be a decline in the standard of care delivered by doctors and an increase in health care costs.
physician
Medical Privacy Threatened by Federal Health Bureaucrats
18 June 2001 Texas Straight Talk 18 June 2001 verse 7 ... Cached
As a physician, I have vigorously opposed the new HHS rules since they first were proposed by the Clinton administration. I introduced legislation earlier this year to prevent their implementation, but unfortunately the deadline for Congress to act on my bill expired last week. However, the fight is not lost, as the rules do not become legally enforceable until 2003. Congress still has time to pass new legislation which prohibits the federal government from gathering your private medical information. I urge every American concerned with medical privacy and quality health care to join me in the fight to keep government out of our medical records.
physician
Government Vaccines- Bad Policy, Bad Medicine
09 December 2002 Texas Straight Talk 09 December 2002 verse 2 ... Cached
"Simply put, it is not ethical to give a medicine that will kill and maim persons for no demonstrable benefit. Assuaging fears about vulnerability to a potential disease is not a benefit any physician should accept."
physician
The Free-Market Approach to the Medical Malpractice Crisis
31 March 2003 Texas Straight Talk 31 March 2003 verse 7 ... Cached
Yet the assessment of liability and compensation should be determined by private contractual agreements between physicians and patients- in other words, by the free market. The free-market approach enables patients to protect themselves with “negative outcomes” insurance purchased before medical treatment. Such insurance ensures that those harmed receive fair compensation, while reducing the burden of costly malpractice litigation on the health care system. Patients receive this insurance payout without having to endure lengthy lawsuits, and without having to give away a large portion of their award to a trial lawyer. This also drastically reduces the costs imposed on physicians and hospitals by malpractice litigation.
physician
So Much for Social Conservatism in Congress
05 May 2003 Texas Straight Talk 05 May 2003 verse 6 ... Cached
As a physician I am of course concerned about terrible diseases like AIDS, and have great sympathy for those who suffer from AIDS both here in America and around the world. But the question is not whether each and every one of us wants to eradicate AIDS. The question is whether yet another government program, especially one that sends money overseas, is a constitutionally proper or effective way to combat the problem. We certainly should have learned by now that good intentions alone can never justify a wasteful and ineffectual government program.
physician
The Federal War on Pain Relief
19 April 2004 Texas Straight Talk 19 April 2004 verse 6 ... Cached
This harassment by law enforcement has forced some doctors to close their practices altogether, leaving their patients with nowhere to turn for pain relief. Is the government concerned about the terrible chilling effect caused by its crackdown on doctors? Hardly. In fact, the current attitude toward pain physicians is exemplified by Assistant US Attorney Gene Rossi’s statement that, “Our office will try our best to root out certain doctors like the Taliban.”
physician
The Federal War on Pain Relief
19 April 2004 Texas Straight Talk 19 April 2004 verse 7 ... Cached
By waging this war on pain physicians, the government is condemning patients to either live with excruciating chronic pain or seek relief from other, less reliable, sources--such as street drug dealers. Of course pain drugs bought on the street likely will pose a greater risk of damaging a patient’s health than those obtained from a physician.
physician
The War on Drugs is a War on Doctors
17 May 2004 Texas Straight Talk 17 May 2004 verse 2 ... Cached
When we talk about the federal war on drugs, most people conjure up visions of sinister South American drug cartels or violent urban street gangs. The emerging face of the drug war, however, is not a gangster or a junkie: It’s your friendly personal physician in a white coat. Faced with their ongoing failure to curtail the illegal drug trade, federal drug agencies have found an easier target in ordinary doctors whose only crime is prescribing perfectly legal pain medication. By applying federal statutes intended for drug dealers, federal prosecutors are waging a senseless and destructive war on doctors. The real victims of the new campaign are not only doctors, but their patients as well.
physician
The War on Drugs is a War on Doctors
17 May 2004 Texas Straight Talk 17 May 2004 verse 3 ... Cached
Dr. Cecil Knox of Virginia is one recent victim of federal authorities, who cannot abide physicians using their own judgment when prescribing pain medication. Dr. Knox faces federal criminal charges for prescribing legal pain drugs, and tragically has been forced to spend several hundred thousand dollars defending himself. Virginia state authorities have neither charged him with a crime nor revoked his medical license, yet the federal government- which constitutionally has no authority to usurp state drug laws- perversely seeks to imprison Dr. Knox for life!
physician
The War on Drugs is a War on Doctors
17 May 2004 Texas Straight Talk 17 May 2004 verse 6 ... Cached
Doctors are not slaves, and they will not continue practicing medicine forever if the federal government insists on monitoring, harassing, fining, and even jailing them. Congress should take action to rein in overzealous prosecutors and law enforcement officials, and stop the harassment of legitimate physicians who act in good faith when prescribing pain relief drugs. Doctors should not be prosecuted for using their best medical judgment, nor should they be prosecuted for the misdeeds of their patients.
physician
Forcing Kids Into a Mental Health Ghetto
13 September 2004 Texas Straight Talk 13 September 2004 verse 4 ... Cached
Dr. Karen Effrem, a physician who strongly opposes mandatory mental health screening, warns us that “America’s children should not be medicated by expensive, ineffective, and dangerous medications based on vague and dubious diagnoses.” She points out that psychiatric diagnoses are inherently subjective, as authors of the diagnostic manuals admit. She also is concerned that mental health screening could be used to label children whose attitudes, religious beliefs, and political views conflict with the secular orthodoxy that dominates our schools.
physician
Lowering the Cost of Health Care
21 August 2006 Texas Straight Talk 21 August 2006 verse 10 ... Cached
HR 3076 is specifically designed to address the medical malpractice crisis that threatens to drive thousands of American doctors- especially obstetricians- out of business. The bill provides a dollar-for-dollar tax credit that permits consumers to purchase "negative outcomes" insurance prior to undergoing surgery or other serious medical treatments. Negative outcomes insurance is a novel approach that guarantees those harmed receive fair compensation, while reducing the burden of costly malpractice litigation on the health care system. Patients receive this insurance payout without having to endure lengthy lawsuits, and without having to give away a large portion of their award to a trial lawyer. This also drastically reduces the costs imposed on physicians and hospitals by malpractice litigation. Under HR 3076, individuals can purchase negative outcomes insurance at essentially no cost.
physician
Diagnosing our Health Care Woes
25 September 2006 Texas Straight Talk 25 September 2006 verse 3 ... Cached
No one disputes the diagnosis: American health care is in lousy shape. As a practicing physician for more than 30 years, I find the pervasiveness of managed care very troubling.
physician
Rights of Taxpayers is Missing Element in Stem Cell Debate
25 June 2007 Texas Straight Talk 25 June 2007 verse 9 ... Cached
If Congress attempts to override the President’s veto, I will support the President. As a physician, I am well aware that certain stem cells have significant medical potential and do not raise the moral dilemmas presented by embryonic stem cell research. My objection is focused on the issue of federal funding. Unfortunately, in the Washington environment of “either subsidize it, or else ban it,” it is unlikely there will be much focus given to the issue of federal funding. Instead, virulent charges will fly regarding who is willing to sacrifice the lives and health of others to make a political point.
physician
Politicizing Pain
27 April 2008 Texas Straight Talk 27 April 2008 verse 7 ... Cached
The Federal government should recognize that states have the authority to decide these issues. This affords all states the opportunity to see which policies are most beneficial. As a Congressman and a physician, I strongly advocate that healthcare decisions should be made by doctors and patients, not politicians or federal agents, which is why I am an original co-sponsor of the recently introduced “Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act” which would bar the Federal government from intervening in such doctor/patient relationships that violate no state law.
Texas Straight Talk from 20 December 1996 to 23 June 2008 (573 editions) are included in this Concordance. Texas Straight Talk after 23 June 2008 is in blog form on Rep. Paul’s Congressional website and is not included in this Concordance.
Remember, not everything in the concordance is Ron Paul’s words. Some things he quoted, and he added some newspaper and magazine articles to the Congressional Record. Check the original speech to see.