[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 18607]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                         MANAGED CARE REFORM

  (Mr. GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, we have a saying in Texas, ``If it's 
not broke, don't fix it.'' Well, our health care delivery system by 
HMOs is broken.
  According to the day if you read almost any newspaper, the Kaiser 
Family Foundation found that 87 percent of doctors said their patients 
had experienced denial of coverage over the last 2 years; 79 percent 
had trouble getting approval for a certain drug they wanted to 
prescribe; 69 percent had trouble getting a diagnostic test approved; 
52 percent had trouble getting patients referred to a specialist.
  And now to bring you up to date, the Republican leadership announced 
their intention once again to bypass the committee process and take a 
managed care bill directly here to the floor. Once again they are 
starting down a road that ignores the American people. They are letting 
the HMOs write their own legislation. Once again they are writing a 
major piece of legislation in the Speaker's office without bipartisan 
support.
  Another Texas saying we have, and I think it applies, is that they 
are letting the fox guard the chicken house. What we need is real HMO 
reform, not a fake or a fig leaf.

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