dr. john friedman. actually it's dr. john fleming from the great state of louisiana, a family practitioner. and it reminds me, the reason did i that, madam speaker, dr. john friedman was one of my classmates in medical school and also one of my co-residents in my ob-gyn training back in georgia. i think dr. john friedman practiced his entire career in boone, north carolina, and i hope dr. john, wherever he is, is doing well if he happens to be tuning into c-span tonight. i wanted to say before referring to and yielding time to my colleague from georgia, a fellow physician, dr. paul broun, also a family practitioner from athens and augusta area, there was a letter sent within the last couple of days addressed to our leaders, to our leadership in the house, to speaker nancy pelosi, and our minority leader, john boehner, also to majority leader of the senate, harry reid and senate minority reeder, mitch mcconnell, the national coalition on benefits, madam speaker, talking about the opposition to a public plan. the strong opp