[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15620-15621]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                    REJECT PATIENTS' BILL OF RIGHTS

  (Mr. DOGGETT asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, as the representative here in Washington 
for the capital city of the Lone Star State of Texas, I take pride in 
the fact that our State has provided national leadership in protecting 
patients from their insurance companies with a model patients' bill of 
rights.
  Now, all America should know that our success in Texas came despite 
the continual objection of then-Governor Bush, who threw up as many 
roadblocks as he could to those meaningful guarantees, in fact, almost 
as many as he now throws up to the bill we consider today on the 
Federal level for a national patients' bill of rights.
  Incredibly, President Bush now seeks to override the effective State 
guarantees that we got enacted over his objection in Texas. And like 
the fine print in one of those policies that only pays if you get 
struck by lightning at leap year on a midnight summer day, this 
patients' bill of rights is riddled with loopholes for insurance 
companies to

[[Page 15621]]

take advantage of sick patients and distressed families.
  It should be rejected in favor of a real patients' bill of rights, 
the kind we got in Texas over President Bush's veto.

                          ____________________