[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 90 (Wednesday, June 23, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H4742-H4743]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          MANAGED CARE REFORM

  (Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas asked and was given permission to 
address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, as we stand here 
this morning, we know that we are in the greatest country in the world. 
We have been responsible for finding all kinds of interventions for our 
health care, and we enjoy the best skill and best knowledge in the 
world for health care.

[[Page H4743]]

  Yet American people do not have access to that care, the care that 
they have paid for through their tax dollars for the research. And yet 
we beg now and plead with the HMOs and the managed care insurance to 
allow people to have access to just basic health care. They need access 
to just needed care. They do not want to be treated one-size-fits-all.
  Whether you are 7 or 70 in this country under HMOs, if you have got a 
certain diagnosis, you all get treated the same. That does not address 
individual needs. Doctors need the freedom to practice the art and the 
science that they have learned and that they are capable of doing. They 
do not have that right under our present system. They are pushed out on 
the line and given instructions by the HMOs, and yet the HMOs do not 
even want to be responsible for what they tell the physicians to do.
  It is time for change. The American people are calling for it.

                          ____________________