[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 15 (Wednesday, February 25, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H583-H584]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               HMO REFORM

  (Mr. ROTHMAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1

[[Page H584]]

minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. ROTHMAN. Madam Speaker, American families are being denied proper 
health care. They are being denied the right to see specialists, the 
right to go to the emergency room, and they have to battle just to get 
reimbursements for legitimate medical procedures.
  The problem is that managed care for health insurance companies has 
become more about managing the profits for these health insurance 
companies than about managing the quality of health care for America's 
families.
  We can no longer afford to have health insurance company clerks 
making health care decisions for our loved ones. That is the job of our 
doctors and our nurses.
  There is a bipartisan bill put forth by the gentleman from Georgia 
(Mr. Norwood), a Republican, that would make health care insurance 
companies accountable. I am a cosponsor of that bill, as are 223 of my 
colleagues.
  Madam Speaker, it is time we bring the Norwood bill to the floor so 
that we can give the American people what they deserve: a health care 
system accountable to them. Health care insurance companies must be 
made accountable when they wrongly deny coverage and reimbursements to 
patients.

                          ____________________