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Story: David E. Kelley, Jennifer Levin and John
Tinker
Teleplay:
Directed By: Lou Antonio
Sutton to Austin : "It'll be a cold day
in hell before I'm beholden to you."
Aaron: Goodnight Alan.
Alan: Goodnight everyone.
Jeffrey: I'd like the Eel's job, wouldn't
you?
Push a few pencils, shuffle some papers. How tough could it be?
Sue a few people, listen to a lot of hooey, spend your life at
lunch.
Alan's speech to the Senate Committee investigating the experimental procedures at Chicago Hope. The day before Senator Thomason had "put down" Phillip - mostly for doing unessecary procedures (he brought up the case with the AIDS patient who got infected with malaria in order to fight the the AIDS virus). Both Phillip and Alan didn't know how to answer the Senator's accusations. After the hearing Phillip was very angry and blamed Alan for not having the right answers. He told him that in his opinion Alan had lost his touch after adopting Alicia. And that he didn't work hard enough for the hospital because taking care for her would require most of his time. Later Phillip regreted his harsh words and wanted to appoligize but Alan closed the door - leaving Phillip standing in the corridore.
Senator Thomason: I'm sorry sir, you
are again please.
Alan Birch: Alan Birch, General Counsel to Chicago Hope
Senator Thomason: I see. Well um, Mr Birch this, um, forum is
about talking to doctors, not to lawyers.
(Phillip watching on TV)
Phillip Watters: Get him.
Alan Birch: This forum is about medicare. That topic had
nothing whatsoever to do with this morning's attack..
Senator Thomason: Well, you'll have to forgive me, but I'm not
about to let you turn this into a pissing contest....
Alan Birch: How about allowing me to respond to the
allegations made by you with the cameras rolling here. Now if you
feel threatened, senator, we can turn the cameras off. Because I
understand you might feel overmatched without the element of surprise
working for you. Again, in theory, any man worthy of a run for
Congress should have enough bite to stand behind his words... Even if
they were supplied to him by a campaign committee.
Senator Thomason: Do you want to come at me, sir? Do you know
what you're up against?
Alan Birch: Only that you're a political creature who does not
know what he's talking about when it comes to how a hospital works.
Not too late to kill those cameras, sir.
Senator Thomason: Oh no, the cameras are running.
Alan Birch: Good. Now let's start with some of the facts you
left out this morning. Like the fact that in all the experimental
procedures you cited at Chicago Hope, the patients lived and
benefited. Not 80%. Not 90, not 99, but 100%. They all got
better.
Senator Thomason: At what cost?
Alan Birch: At a cost more expensive than death. But you left
out that Chicago Hope has the lowest mortality rate of any hospital
in the state. You particularly left out that surgeons there or
anywhere sometimes have to make decisions in an instant. They don't
have the luxury of appointing sub committees, to debate the pros and
the cons. They don't have the time to consider public opinion polls.
They can't take lunch with a lobbyist before choosing what to do.
Patients face imminent death, and surgeons sometimes have to
improvise without waiting for (?) approval. And yes, occasionally,
they resort to untried, experimental procedures, but your suggestion
that it's about playing with toys, who get's to be first, who's ego
wins out. That is repugnant, not only to surgeons, but also to the
credibility of your office. Only thing a comment like that proves is
that obviously you've never been in an OR, senator. Certainly not one
at Chicago Hope.
Senator Thomason: You should get John Williams to score this
match.
Alan Birch: Boy you talk about saving Medicare from
bankruptcy. Your real intent is to slash its costs to balance your
state and federal budget. Well I'm going to tell you something. More
people die with your plan, senator. Especially the elderly. HMO's
win. For profit organizations flourish. But trauma centers, emergency
rooms, they get shut down. So you want to make the hospital the
villain here, that's fine. But it's a government shell game, at the
expense of the elderly, at the expense of the poor. And everyone in
this room know it.
(Another Senator speaks up)
Other Senator: This is not a place for politics
Alan Birch: It is entirely about politics. It's about nothing
but politics. You single out Chicago Hope because it's rich. You make
a big public attack on a wealthy institution. Eh, cameras rolling.
Let's wack at the rich. And then you just hope the poor don't realize
they're the one's getting hammered here. That's who you're sticking
it to.So you want my vote, senator, You check into those hospitals
who deliberately overbid Medicare contracts, so they lose them, so
they don't have to treat the poor at fixed rates. You check into
HMO's who threaten to shut down doctor's practices, unless those
doctors promise to treat patients on the cheap. You check into
insurance companies who promise to provide coverage, and then deny
it, 'cause of some fine print which defines a procedure as
experimental. There is a lot of waste, a lot of crap, a lot of wrong
for you to go after in health care. But surgeons ain't it. Easy
targets, you bet, but they ain't it. So you don't get my vote,
Senator Thomason. (Start's pounding on desk) Sloppy work, and
YOU DON'T GET MY VOTE! (Alan stares into the eyes of the
senator)
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