dr. giordano and all those of the george washington teaching standard, my fellow members of congress, dr.members of congress in the d.c. physicians who are on the panel. the caucus in the house of representatives was formed this year as friedgen the 111th congress, knowing that this health care reform issue was on the front burner for president obama and the democratic majority and we came together and have been meeting on a regular basis since then talking about this issue and working on alternatives to what we like to call, unfortunately, during the baby out with the bathwater and turning our health care system completely lock, stock, and vero over to the federal government and a bunch of bureaucrats brother than fixing the system that we have. -- rather than fixing the system that we have. obviously, the concern and the reason that most people would say, including those of us on both sides of the aisle, the system needs fixing because of some of the statistics that have already been mentioned today and the specific question, 47 million uninsured. and of course, the reason for that, bec

dr. joe giordano. >> thank you very much, peter.wledge the congressman who have a tight schedule with a lot on the plate but i am pleased they're here. members of the d.c. medical society and our own staff. dr. stephen it was the president of george washington medical center, trent cable is the ceo of the hospital here and dr. gary little who is a medical director and all you people here so it is a nice opportunity and i'm glad i'm here also. [laughter] chris asked me to make a few comments before we started and i thought when i would do is talk a little about the establishment of the trauma system that occurred about 30 or 40 years ago which i was involved with locally and i think it is important to do that because it gives us, it is pertinent to what we will talk about later on. back in the '50s and '60s the handling was abysmal. there was no ems system and no 911. the ambulances for nothing more than converted cadillacs there is some of your old enough to remember you push a patient in and run to the nearest center, nearest hospi