Critical Care (1997)

Albert Brooks: Dr. Butz

Photos 

Quotes 

• Dr. Werner Ernst : My question is, if you were comatose would you want to be kept a live for months by machines.

  Dr. Butz : Hell no! When I go, I don't want to be tortured in some bed. I have this planned out, Warner. I'm gonna be sitting on my back porch, I'm gonna have a Cuban cigar in one hand, and a big glass 'o scotch in the other, and a belly full of barbecued ribs with a ton of sauce. That's why I don't have insurance.

• Dr. Butz : When those lawyers start crawling all over you, that's when you know you're a doctor.

• Dr. Werner Ernst : If there's no reasonable prospect of cure, why should we proceed?

  Dr. Butz : Where have you been all your life? It's called revenue!

• Dr. Butz : When I drink I only perform mundane tasks like, um, well, talking to you, for example.

• Dr. Butz : It's these HMOs that have confused the issue. If the patient were part of an HMO then I could understand your dilemma. With those babies we get paid *not* to perform medical procedures. It's a little like when the government pays the farmers not to grow crops. But with insurance we get paid *to* perform medical procedures.

• Lucille : But Dr. Miller said...

  Dr. Butz : Tell doctor Miller that his head is full of horse shit. And if he disagrees, slip him in the MRI machine and look for yourself.

• [last lines] 

  Dr. Butz : [shouting from his car]  Ernst! Stay away from him! You wanna get sued again? Damn it, make sure he's got insurance! Better ask him for proof of insurance! Haven't you learned anything from me?

  Mike : Are you a doctor?

  Dr. Werner Ernst : Yeah, I'm a doctor.

• Dr. Butz : Do you remember what happened? They kicked me upstairs! Made me Chairman Emeritus of Intensive Care Medicine. Emeritus. That's Latin for "over the hill".

• Dr. Butz : I'll tell you what, next time his heart stops, let's just kiss his ass goodbye. Isn't that what we all went to medical school for?

• Dr. Butz : Take a look this cat shit. The Medical Licensing Board's coming after me with a pack of rattlesnake lawyers. Look at this, somebody filed another goddamn complaint.

• Dr. Butz : If I get sick, no doctor of this planet is gonna to come ten feet from me. They talk about a living will. You don't need a living will. Just make sure you don't have money for health care - and you'll die a happy fellow, with a big smile on your face, in your own king size bed.