Questions about the economy and gas drilling dominated the discussion at a town hall meeting Congressman Michael Burgess (R-Lewisville) hosted at Flower Mound High School on Tuesday. The auditorium was slightly more than half full, and Burgess took questions and comments from about 20 audience members. The meeting was the first in a series of three the congressman held in his district during the first week of August. Burgess gave a brief statement before opening the floor to questions. He remind... Read more

On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess (R-26) dropped by Gainesville’s Civic Center to meet with area constituents for a “Town Hall” meeting. More than 150 locals turned out to voice their concerns and ask the congressmen questions. Some came armed with the specific numbers of resolutions, and issues discussed ranged from medical marijuana to veterans’ affairs. But perhaps the most heated topic of the afternoon was health care reform. Burgess, a former ob/gyn, has served in Congress since 2002, a... Read more

A new bipartisan bill aims to ensure that multi-campus hospitals that employ and show meaningful use of health IT systems receive incentive payments that reflect the higher costs of implementation. Rep. Pete Stark, chair of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, joined Rep. Zack Space (D-Ohio), along with Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee chair Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.), and Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) in introducing the Electronic Health Record Incentives for Multi-Campus Hospitals ... Read more

**reprinted with permission of Texas Medicine and the Texas Medical Association Troy Creamean, DO, was so fed up with declining Medicare payments that he closed his practice and left town. Devastated by a 50-percent drop in revenue in the past five years and facing another 21.3-percent cut this year, the plastic surgeon who specialized in head and neck cancer surgery shut down his Corpus Christi office and moved to Houston, where he now performs elective surgical procedures. That means, he says,... Read more

A Republican House member introduced a resolution this week seeking documents, records and communications from HHS related to any analysis conducted by the CMS chief actuary pertaining to the health reform bill, and specifically a report issued weeks after the March 23 passage of the bill in an effort to determine whether the Obama administration withheld releasing data on the bill days before a final vote. The analysis, issued April 22 by CMS Chief Actuary Rich Foster, estimated that the bill w... Read more

Congressman Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (R-Texas), ranking member of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, last night introduced a Resolution of Inquiry (ROI), H.Res. 1561, requesting internal Health and Human Services (HHS) communications related to a government report that the newly enacted health care law will actually cause health care costs to increase by billions. On April 22, 2010, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Chief Actuary, Richard S. Foster, released a report entitled Estimated Financial Effects of the ‘Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,’ as Amended, which predicted that, under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, national health expenditures would increase by $311 billion over 10 years. These updated projections were only released after the President signed the bill into law. Read more

A senior House Republican has stepped up his call for HHS to turn over cost estimates it received from federal actuaries about the healthcare reform legislation before it became law. Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), a physician, late Tuesday introduced a resolution of inquiry requiring HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to hand over any documents, e-mails, records of telephone calls or internal discussions that centered on cost estimates made by the CMS. Burgess said that reports made public after l... Read more

Congressman Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (Texas-26) has announced three Town Hall meetings for the first week of August. The Town Halls give residents of Texas’ 26th Congressional District the chance to learn more about health care reform, taxes and spending, energy legislation, immigration reform, or any other issues. “I’ll be there to hear from you on the issues that are important to you, your family, and our community, and discuss issues currently before the United States Congress,” Congressman Burgess said. “I certainly look forward to meeting you and hearing your views.” Read more

The Chinese government didn't pursue an investigation into contaminated heparin sent to the U.S. in 2007 and 2008, despite repeated requests from the U.S. for help, according to a congressional probe. Two House Republicans said Food and Drug Administration officials recently told them that the agency has been "severely hampered" by the lack of cooperation from China in finding those responsible. Contamination in the widely used blood-thinner was linked to at least 81 deaths in the U.S. The probe... Read more

“There’s a couple of things we need to bear in mind regarding energy needs of our country,” said Congressman Michael Burgess (26th District) during a recent interview at The News Connection office. “This country needs an energy source in order to run its economy, even though we may not agree on what the source is. From a local perspective, there are questions as to whether or not drilling in the Barnett Shale can be done safely. There are serious concerns about emissions, about water and about s... Read more