Michael Burgess - Doctor in the House: A Physician-Turned-Congressman Offers His Prescription for Scrapping Obamacare -- and Saving Americas Medical System

DOCTORIN
THEHOUSE

DOCTORIN
THEHOUSE

A Physician-Turned-Congressman Offers
His Prescription for Scrapping Obamacare
and Saving Americas Medical System

Congressman
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, MD

Doctor in the House

WND Books

Published by WorldNetDaily

Washington, D.C.

Copyright 2011
Michael C. Burgess

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First Edition

ISBN 13 Digit: 978-1-936488-25-4

Library of Congress information available

Printed in the United States of America

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THE SUN HAD BARELY RISEN ABOVE THE TREE LINE TO MY LEFT AS I made my way along historic U.S. 377 toward the heart of Denton, Texas. Old 377 runs alongside U.S. 77 and, in the days before the Interstate highway system, ran right up through the heartland of America, connecting Brownsville, Texas at the Rio Grande with Sioux Falls, South Dakotawith ten thousand wheat fields in between. Today it was connecting me to one of the most important meetings of my political career.

It was early August and North Texas was in the middle of an extended string of cloudless 100-plus degree days. I was uncomfortable as I drove, but not because of the rising temperature. Frankly, I was just nervous. As the fourth-term Republican Congressman for Texas 26th District, I was on my way to do a town hall meeting in one of my districts largest cities. Denton, which lies about thirty miles north of Dallas and Fort Worth, was my boyhood home. I had always found it to be friendly territory, but today I was heading into what I knew would be a buzz saw of constituent emotion. It was Americas Summer of Discontent and across the country passions had been rising faster than the temperatures.

I was keenly aware that in the previous forty-eight hours a number of my congressional colleagues in both political parties, freshly home after the August recess, had encountered large, rowdy crowds and angry questions at what were ordinarily sleepy, sparsely attended little community meetings.

Indeed, I had seen the national news reports two days earlier. Democrat Kathy Castors town hall in Tampa, Florida had quickly devolved into a rowdy shouting match between opponents and a few advocates of a government-mandated overhaul of Americas health care system as more than a thousand people showed up for a meeting in a hall that only accommodated 250. There, an already tense situation became more volatile when individuals carrying union ID cards were allowed into the meeting through a side entrance. This was after hundreds of non-union constituents were turned away.

I had also read reports of how John Dingells meeting in Romulus, Michigan had drawn a huge, vocal crowdmore than 600 people showed for a meeting in a room with a capacity of 150a throng that was clearly in no mood to sit passively and listen to evasive political spin and vague platitudes. Dingell was a lead author of the Democrats health care legislation in the House. In the middle of the raucous event, an older man wheeled his cerebral palsy-stricken son to the very front of the room and loudly challenged Dingell about his legislation amid cheers and chants from the crowd. The image was carried by wire services to newspapers and Websites nationwide. Reports of similar fireworks were coming in from all over the country.

Closer to home, I was also aware that just the day before, Representative Pete Sessions who, like me, represents a portion of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, had filled to overflowing an 800-seat civic center in nearby Richardson, Texas. I had spoken with Pete afterwards. He said that in 12-plus years of serving in Congress hed never seen his constituents so animated and alarmed about an issue. He told me to expect hard questions and deeply frustrated people at my meeting. Further, he warnedthey are not interested in hearing you talk; you are to listen to them.

Believe me, I took him seriously. For the Denton town hall meeting of August 8, 2009, we acquired the biggest venue we coulda meeting room in the Center for the Visual Arts that would accommodate about 400 chairs with room for another 100 people willing to stand around the perimeter of the room. Anticipating the possibility of even more people than that, my staff planned to set up speakers and microphones out in the parking lot, just in case. I knew it was going to be an interesting event.

The fact is, I had already had a taste of town hall intensity over the brief Fourth of July recess a month earlier when, to my shock, between 250 and 300 people showed up on a holiday to express concern and vent real anger about the Cap and Trade legislation that Speaker Nancy Pelosi had just rammed through the House over objections and no votes by conservatives like me.

To understand my surprise, you have to know that in my few years of experience as a Congressman, these town hall get-togethers had always been pretty intimate affairslike my very first town hall after being elected in 2002.

At that time, I was brand new to the whole business of representing a congressional district and I was leaning heavily on those more experienced and the Republican leadership to guide me and help me avoid pitfalls. As I flew home Friday evening for my very first Saturday morning town hall meeting in Keller, Texas, I was armed with talking points and a speech I had been handed by the House Republican leadership office.

When I showed up the next morning for the meeting, there was a grand total of one person in attendance. That one individual happened to be the mayor of Keller who most likely felt obligated to show up for the new Congressmans first official meeting in her city. Another person wandered in about halfway through the allotted time. Not knowing what else to do, I pressed ahead and delivered my speech!

In the years that followed, attendance at these events grewcrowds of thirty or forty people were commonplacebut not by much. Thats what made that Fourth of July recess of 2009 so startling.

The vote on the Waxman-Markey legislationa misguided attempt at a global warming response widely known as the Cap and Trade bill passed, but only narrowly: 219-212. Eight Republicans voted for the bill, while forty-four Democrats voted against it. I was one of the no votes and for many good reasons, chief among them that the bill amounted to a major tax increase on average Americans who would end up paying more for energy and fuel, should the bill become law. The bill, in my opinion, would result in massive economic disruptions for our nation while making a negligible dent in worldwide carbon emissions.