[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16957-16958]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                    ISSUES BEFORE THE 106TH CONGRESS

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my colleague, the Senator from Wyoming, 
said we have a lot to do. He is certainly correct, we have a lot to do 
in about a 5-week sprint to the end of this 106th Congress.
  I think all of us aspired to come to this Chamber because we want to 
get things done for the American people. We want this country to be 
successful and to grow and prosper. We want to address real problems.
  My hope is that we can find ways, between the political aisles, where 
Republicans and Democrats can agree that there are things that need to 
be done in this country and that we can do them together. I think that 
would be a refreshing thing for the American people to see.
  In the final 5 or 6 weeks of this Congress, we could probably take 
some advice from the Robert Frost poem, ``Stopping By Woods On A Snowy 
Evening,'' where Robert Frost says:

       The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
       But I have promises to keep,
       And miles to go before I sleep,
       And miles to go before I sleep.

  We have miles to go before we put this 106th Congress to bed.
  What are these issues that we must deal with before we finally 
adjourn this Congress?
  A Patients' Bill of Rights. We have had so much discussion about the 
Patients' Bill of Rights in this Congress, and yet the Patients' Bill 
of Rights languishes in a conference. Month after month after month, 
nothing gets done. I know people have come to the floor of the Senate 
and have said: Gee, we are making progress. But I say the difference 
between this conference committee and a glacier is at least a glacier 
moves an inch or so every decade. This conference committee is not able 
to make progress on a Patients' Bill of Rights.
  It seems to me, in the Senate and the House we must say to this 
conference: We want to have a real Patients' Bill of Rights brought to 
the floor of the Senate and the House and passed.
  I have told stories in relation to this on the floor of the Senate. 
It is probably useful to recount at least one story again as an example 
of why we need a Patients' Bill of Rights.
  A woman fell off a cliff in the Shenandoah mountains. After having 
fallen off the cliff, she was rendered unconscious, with broken bones, 
with a concussion. Being unconscious, she was taken by ambulance to an 
emergency room in a hospital. She was rolled in on a gurney, 
unconscious. She survived. She had very significant injuries, but she 
survived.
  Following that ordeal, she was released from the hospital to be told 
that her emergency room expenses would not be covered by the managed 
care organization because she did not have prior approval for emergency 
room treatment.
  This is someone who was hauled into the emergency room on a gurney, 
unconscious. She was in a coma. She was told by the insurance company: 
You did not have prior approval for emergency room treatment.
  The Patients' Bill of Rights is very simple. It says: A patient ought 
to have the right to know all of their medical options for treatment, 
not just the cheapest. A patient ought to have the right to emergency 
room treatment when they have an emergency. There are a whole series of 
rights that patients ought to have when dealing with their managed care 
organization.
  There was the woman who cried one day at a hearing that I held with 
my colleague from Nevada as she held up a picture of her 16-year-old 
son who had died. She told us that on her son's deathbed he said to 
her: Mom, how can they do this to a kid like me? Through tears, she 
held up the picture of her young son who had died who had said: Mom, 
how can they do this to a kid like me?
  That situation had forced this kid and his family to fight the 
insurance company to get the treatment he needed. They failed. He died. 
This was a kid who was told to fight cancer and fight the insurance 
company at the same time. That is unfair. That is not a fair fight.
  You ought not have to fight cancer and your managed care organization 
to get the treatment you need. That is the point. We need to pass a 
real Patients' Bill of Rights. We have not done that. There are lots of 
excuses for it, but we need to get it done. We need to get it done now.
  We need to add a prescription drug benefit for senior citizens on the 
Medicare program. We all know that. If we were to write the Medicare 
program today, there is no question we would have a prescription drug 
benefit in the program. But 30 years ago, 40 years ago when the 
Medicare program was created, most of the lifesaving drugs we have 
today did not exist. They do now. Each senior citizen needs access to 
those drugs.

[[Page 16958]]

  Last year, the cost of prescription drugs increased 16 percent in 
this country. All too often the prescription drugs--the miracle drugs--
they need are out of their reach because of their inability to pay for 
them. We need to add a prescription drug benefit to the Medicare 
program. We can do that, and should do that.
  We ought to raise the minimum wage. The folks at the bottom of the 
economic ladder in this country have not kept up. We need to help them 
as well. Increasingly, they are women trying to raise families in 
single-parent households. We need to increase the minimum wage. We 
should do that. We can do that.
  We ought to write a new farm bill. Everybody understands the current 
farm bill has failed. My feeling is, if we have the opportunity--and we 
should have the opportunity--in this Congress to write a new farm bill, 
we ought to be able to provide a decent safety net for those out there 
on America's farms who are struggling to make a living.
  These issues and others--school modernization, fixing what is wrong 
in education--all of these things we can do, and should do. We only 
have 5 or 6 weeks remaining. I hope all of us, in the spirit of 
bipartisanship, can decide these are the issues, these are the things 
that are important to the American people, these are the things that 
will strengthen our country.
  Yes, we have miles to go before we sleep, but we have the 
opportunity, in this setting, in this democracy, to make these 
decisions for the benefit of the American people.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thomas). The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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