About Kevin Brady
Kevin Brady, a cardiac surgeon in Phoenix, Arizona, presented at the 2nd Annual Women’s Heart & Vascular Symposium in 2020 on the unique aspects of surgical revascularization in women. He stated that coronary bypass grafting is the most common cardiac surgical procedure in adults and remains the gold standard for revascularization, citing randomized trials that demonstrate its long-term superiority over percutaneous intervention for patients with three-vessel disease or left main coronary involvement. Brady noted that fewer women undergo the procedure than men and that women historically have been thought to have worse outcomes, but he said that in the modern era, propensity-matched populations show equal 30-day mortality and long-term survivability for men and women. He proposed using off-pump bypass grafting more often for women, stating that no trial has shown they do worse than men, and advocated for earlier referral of patients for revascularization.
In 2009, Brady, then a U.S. Congressman, spoke at a town hall meeting and in a video explaining his opposition to the Obama health care bill. He argued that the legislation was not about reforming health care but about moving to a single-payer, government-run system, and he attributed that view to a statement by Barney Frank. Brady criticized the bill for what he described as $800 billion in new taxes on professionals and small businesses, $500 billion in Medicare cuts, and new mandates, and he said it would cost small businesses over 4 million jobs. He also claimed the bill would run the country at least $4 trillion in debt in the first 10 years and compared its structure to an adjustable-rate mortgage. Brady encouraged the public to speak out to their elected representatives and to reach out to friends and family in other districts to oppose the legislation)Skip
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Kevin Brady's recent appearances.
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Transcript (4 segments)
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Interviewer0:08
You've talked about the power of the American people to try to stop this train wreck. What specifically would you recommend we do?
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Kevin Brady0:20
Two things, two things I would do. And it seems awfully basic, but like the rest of America, there are no shortcuts. One, you need to speak out both to your elected representative and to your two US senators, who by the way share views very close to mine on this bill. But first you need to speak out. Don't assume anything. So speak out to your local workers. And secondly, another great tradition in America, reach out to friends and family and co-workers in other congressional districts and then tell them to speak out, to email their member of Congress, to go to a town hall meeting, to phone their office. The only way, I think the only way the American public is heard in this whole debate is if we speak out, reach out, and we don't stop till we're heard. Because in America, the way our system works, those who believe the most and those who believe the longest win. That's what America's about.
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Audience Member1:28
Great. Congressman Brady, wanted to thank you for exposing yourself to a group like this and taking... I wanted to share a couple of things from my own personal experience. I lived in Europe for four years in a country with socialized health care, and then I have spent extensive time in other countries in Europe where I didn't have residency but spent many, many months there over time. I've lost three close friends who died at the hands of government-provided health care because it was rationed, and if they had lived in America they'd be alive today and they'd still be people that I could interact with. So that's a small selection of people that I was exposed to that I know of that died because of the lack of health care that the government provided. One had a heart attack. A doctor friend of his took him to the hospital. He was stabilized, but they had used up their budget of health care for the type of operation he needed, a bypass, which is not that sophisticated. He lay in a hospital bed for three weeks in a hospital in Aberdeen, Scotland, and then passed away. And that's not an uncommon occurrence. I have many friends in Scotland and Norway, in Britain, in Germany, and in France, and they all suffer from the health care system that's in place there. My question is, with the TARP, with the stimulus, with the current deficit that we're running this year, which I think is projected to be somewhere between 1.5 and 2 trillion, the government has gone crazy on money. I mean, we're now printing money to cover the interest on the money that we borrowed previously. It can't be about economics. None of the TARP didn't make sense, the stimulus package doesn't make sense, the budget for 2009 does not make sense, adding a very low number of 1.5 or 1.4 trillion over 10 years to a runaway debt. So if it's not about financial sanity, it's not about improving health care, but about control, what is the real motive? You're closer to Washington than we are. It makes no sense in our place.
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Kevin Brady3:58
Thanks. Sorry to hear about your family, but thanks for sharing that with us. And the answer is at the heart of this whole debate. This, in my view, isn't about reforming health care in America. It is about moving to a single-payer, national government-run system. And don't take my word for it. I was watching a video the other day and Barney Frank, chairman of the Financial Services Committee, said what everyone is thinking. He said, 'Give me a public option or give me a co-op. Either way, I'll make it into a single-payer system.' So that's what this is. When you look at it, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense if you talk coverage and affordability and more responsibility, more choices. It doesn't make sense in any of those areas. But it does when you realize where they want to go with this. So that's why we've drawn a line in the sand on the public option, because no matter how small that baby is born, we know what it will grow into. And that's wrong for America in my view. So, Francine, why don't we go... why don't the woman in the back? She had her hand right back.
