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Medical decisions have been politicized. What doctor wants a state legislator in his consulting room?

I don't want anybody between a doctor and a patient - not an insurance company bureaucrat or a Washington bureaucrat.

There is a shortage of doctors, and the American Medical Association is aiming to keep it that way.

I would welcome processes that eliminate the need for doctors. We bottle-neck things around doctors, and it's not a good way of doing things.

We are all representatives of the American people. We all do town hall meetings. We all talk to our constituents. And I've got to tell you, the American people are engaged. And if you think they want a government takeover of health care, I would respectfully submit you're not listening to them.

We need to take politics out of health care. Congress will cave to pretty much any special interest on the subject.

Residents of my district continue to stress to me that they want health care decisions to be made by patients and doctors, not by the government and insurance companies.

As a practicing physician for over 30 years, I can assure the president that the majority of physicians in this country are for health-care reform - just not the government-run reform he prefers.

We can trust our doctors to be professional, to minister equally to their patients without regard to their political or religious beliefs. But we can no longer trust our professors to do the same.

We will empower patients as well as health professionals. We will disempower the hierarchy and bureaucracy.