Dr. Coburn on Senate Floor

excerpts from Senate Floor Oct 14, 2009

Full Transcript can be read and watched here.

"I don't believe there is anybody in Congress who does not want us to change the way we look at prevention because there is no way we can control health care costs unless we both try to prevent chronic disease and also manage the chronic disease we have.

"One of the reasons we have more chronic disease than other countries is because we keep people with chronic disease alive a lot longer. They let them die. They ration the care out, and they determine what the value of their life is. With a chronic disease, eventually they quit treating them. The numbers get skewed because we do a pretty good job. Even though we did not prevent it, we do a wonderful job, and we can actually do far better in managing chronic disease...

"In 5 1/2 years, the Medicare trust fund will be belly up. Nobody disputes that point. The Medicare trustees are saying that. We have all these problems in Medicare. Why don't we fix those? We have a full 15 percent, at a minimum, of fraud in Medicare. Where is the fix? Why don't we fix it? Instead, we are going to bring to the floor 88 new government programs...

"There is no question if you are sick, this is the best place in the world to get sick. If you have cancer, your cure rate is 40 to 50 percent better than anywhere else in the world. If you have heart disease, your outcome is better than any other place in the world. Prevention is key, but as we try to fix the problems in health care, our first goal ought to be ``do no harm'' to what is good about American health care."