[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 95 (Thursday, July 16, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H5639]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    DEMOCRAT PATIENT PROTECTION BILL

  (Mr. MILLER of California asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, today millions of Americans 
will visit their family physician seeking medical care, and, for 
thousands and thousands of those Americans, they will be told by their 
family physician that they will not be able to see the specialist that 
they need to see, they will not be able to get the medicine that the 
physician thinks they need, they will not be able to get the medical 
procedure that their physician believes they should have. They cannot 
do that because some HMO bureaucrat is saying, we are not going to 
allow you to do that. We are not going to allow you to do that because 
we are going to try to save money, as opposed to dealing with your real 
health care needs.
  The Democratic patient protection bill ensures that Americans have 
access to specialists, that Americans have access to the medicines they 
need, that Americans have access to the operations that are necessary 
to preserve their health. It does this in the patient protection bill 
that the President will be coming to Capitol Hill to support today.
  Yesterday the Republicans introduced their HMO protection bill. They 
decided that rather than protect the Americans for health care, they 
would protect the HMOs.

                              {time}  1015

  While they say they extend protections to Americans, they leave 100 
million uninsured Americans out of these protections, 100 million 
Americans that will not be able to get the medicines, that will not be 
able to see the specialists, that will not be able to get the medical 
procedures necessary for their health care.

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