Tom Coburn

Tom Coburn is a United States Senator (R-Oklahoma}, who was elected in 2004 after retiring from the House of Representatives. He sees himself as a citizen-legislator, and has set term limits for himself; a physician, he continues to see patients. He retired from the House in keeping with a personal term limit promise, came to the House from the practice of medicine, and came to medicine from accounting and manufacturing.

He is a member of the Senate Committees on the Judiciary, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Intelligence, Indian Affairs and on U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

His legislative priorities in both houses have focused on spending and health. He is a social conservative, representing what he sees as traditional Oklahoma values. Sometimes called "Dr. No", he is not infrequently in rules battle, consistent with his self-identification as a citizen-legislator, as seen in his term limits. In 2008, he was warned by the U.S. Senate Committee on Ethics not to accept fees for performing deliveries in Oklahoma.

Spending
As a senator, Dr. Coburn has offered more amendments than any of his colleagues in his fight to eliminate wasteful spending and protect individual liberty. In 2006, he teamed up with then-Senator Barack Obama to create www.usaspending.gov, an online database of all federal spending.

During his three terms in the House, Dr. Coburn also played an influential role in reforming welfare and other federal entitlement programs. He led efforts to balance the budget, offering countless amendments to trim the bloated federal budget.

Medicine and health
He takes a broad view of life, being opposed to abortion and continuing to deliver babies. He voted against HR 2260, the Pain Relief Promotion Act of 1999, would ban the use of drugs for physician-assisted suicide. The bill would not allow doctors to give lethal prescriptions to terminally ill patients, and but encourages hospice and palliative medicine.

Health legislation on which he worked in the House include laws to expand seniors' health care options, to protect access to home health care in rural areas and to allow Americans to access cheaper medications from Canada and other nations. Dr. Coburn also wrote a law intended to prevent baby AIDS. The Wall Street Journal said about the law, "In 10 long years of AIDS politics and funding, this is actually the first legislation to pass in this country that will rescue babies." He also wrote a law to renew and reform federal AIDS care programs. In 2002, President George Bush chose Dr. Coburn to serve as co-chair of the President's Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA).

He president of his class at the University of Oklahoma Medical School where he graduated in 1983. He then did his internship in general surgery at St. Anthony's Hospital in Oklahoma City and family practice residency at the University of Arkansas, Fort Smith.

Dr. Coburn also is a two-time cancer survivor.

Early education and career
From 1970 to 1978, Dr. Coburn served as manufacturing manager at the Ophthalmic Division of Coburn Optical Industries in Colonial Heights, Virginia. Under his leadership, the Virginia division of Coburn Optical grew from 13 employees to more than 350 and captured 35 percent of the U.S. market.

In 1970, Dr. Coburn graduated with an accounting degree from Oklahoma State University. One of the Top Ten seniors in the School of Business, Dr. Coburn served as president of the College of Business Student Council.