[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 16]
[House]
[Page 23632]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                        THE RIGHT TO SUE AN HMO

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, in a few days this House is going to vote 
on an issue that will impact the health of every family in this 
country. The managed care lobby will do their best to confuse the 
Members of this body as to the real effect of the Bipartisan Consensus 
Managed Care Improvement Act that I introduced along with the gentleman 
from Michigan (Mr. Dingell).
  I urge all Members to simply read the bill. The HMO lobby is telling 
Members that employers can be sued for simply offering a health plan, 
for their choice of a health plan, for the actions of that health plan. 
But yesterday Members heard in this Chamber the truth, the actual 
language of the bill, that dispels every one of these falsehoods.
  The managed care lobby has also tried to tell Members that employers 
and insurers can be sued for not buying or providing a specific 
benefit, and that this bill would mandate all kinds of new coverage. 
Read the bill, page 61 beginning on line 24. Read the bill. Employers 
and insurance companies cannot be sued for, and I would like to quote:

       ``The decision to include or exclude from the plan any 
     specific benefit.

  How can we be any clearer than that?
  The managed care lobby has told Members that this bill opens the door 
for unlimited punitive damages against health plans with jury awards 
soaring into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
  To begin with, 30 of our States have already capped punitive damages. 
In my home State of Georgia, if the consensus bill becomes law, when it 
becomes law, there will be no punitive damages allowed regardless of 
the circumstances.
  It is for precisely this reason that the consensus bill puts these 
court remedies back into the hands of the States, where tort reforms 
have been far more effective than here at the Federal level.
  Read the bill. We have left a way for insurance companies to remain 
shielded from any punitive damages. Not a penny. If there is a dispute 
and the health plan agrees to settle it fairly with external appeals, 
they remain shielded from all punitive damages. Read the bill, on page 
60 beginning line 3. I quote again:

       The plan is not liable for any punitive, exemplary or 
     similar damages if the plan or the issuer complied with the 
     determination of the external appeal entity.

  How can we be any simpler than that? As a matter of fact, read the 
whole section of this bill of who can sue for what. It is just three 
pages. But those simple three pages overturn 25 years of injustice, and 
they close the door on unscrupulous health plans using this loophole in 
the law to breach their contracts and kill people with impunity.
  The HMO lobby has one last chance to defeat this legislation and that 
is to distort the issue. If they were successful, I believe they would 
find the end result of their success would be far less agreeable than 
the reasonable reforms of this bill.
  We can correct the problems of managed care with responsible 
legislation right here in the People's House, or it will be corrected 
by the courts and the States, without the carefully crafted provisions 
to ensure that we do not disrupt our current health care system in the 
process.
  For those who would oppose reforms, take your choice. But either way, 
the people, the Constitution and the rule of law will prevail in this 
room next week.

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