[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 141 (Friday, October 9, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H10223-H10224]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       MANAGED HEALTH CARE REFORM

  (Mr. DOGGETT asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. DOGGETT. Madam Speaker, the focus of this House has been almost 
entirely on what the President did wrong and next to none on how 
Americans across this country have themselves been wronged in a variety 
of ways.
  One of those that I hear the most from Texas concerns the whole 
problem of health care and access to health care, the fact that too 
many people find themselves subject to health care

[[Page H10224]]

providers who are gagged, they do not have a choice with regard to 
their health plan, that they are being harmed in some cases by the 
decisions that a clerk someplace, not a health care professional, not 
themselves, but a clerk somewhere who might get a bonus by denying them 
health care makes.
  I would say that, in the waning days of this Congress, which has done 
so little to right the wrongs of the American people, that the 
President ought to say to the Congress, you cannot go home until you 
right the wrongs that have been done to the American people with 
reference to health care.
  Let us see some meaningful reform of the way these managed care 
organizations work, the way they interfere in the doctor-patient 
relationship. Let us see something done to help the problems that the 
ordinary American family faces. Let us not go home until the job is 
completed. I hope the President will speak out on this issue.

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