[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 100 (Thursday, July 23, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H6192-H6193]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          MANAGED CARE REFORM

  (Ms. DeLAURO asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, as a cancer survivor, I can tell you that 
when you are diagnosed with a deadly illness you come face to face with 
your own mortality. While you are wondering whether you are going to 
live or you are going to die, you should not have to worry that 2,000 
miles away an HMO accountant is making the decisions about what kind of 
treatment that they are going to provide or what kind of drugs can be 
provided for your illness. These are the kinds of decisions that ought 
to be made by doctors and patients, period.

[[Page H6193]]

  The Democrats do have a managed care reform proposal that would 
ensure the critical health care decisions are made by doctors and 
patients and not HMO bureaucrats. Yet, the Republican proposals would 
not provide access to specialty care for cancer patients, provide the 
necessary needed drugs, prohibit drive-through mastectomies. They have 
no direct access to OB/GYNs. The last straw is they have no access to 
State courts if your HMO plan injures you.
  What they do allow is for those company accountants to continue to 
value its HMO healthy profits over the healthy patients that are in 
this country. Let us return medical decisions back to doctors and 
patients. Let us pass the Democratic Patients' Bill of Rights.

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