HOUSE SHOULD ALLOW DEBATE AND VOTE ON DEMOCRATS' PATIENTS' BILL OF RIGHTS -- (House of Representatives - June 24, 1999)

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(Mr. ROTHMAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. ROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I joined my Democratic colleagues in signing a discharge petition to force the Republican leadership here in the House to bring the Democrats' Patients' Bill of Rights up for debate and a vote. The Republican leadership refuses to permit debate and a vote on the Democrats' Patients' Bill of Rights.

The Democrats' Patients' Bill of Rights is based on a revolutionary idea that managed care should be more

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about managing the health of our loved ones than managing the profits of the HMOs.

We need to ensure that treatment decisions are made by a patient's doctors, not by an HMO accounting clerk; that patients can enforce their rights by taking HMOs to court if the HMO wrongfully denies surgery, specialists, hospitalization or other medically necessary care that causes the death or injury to the patients.

Moderates on both sides of the aisle have endorsed the Democrats' Patients' Bill of Rights, but the Republican leadership here in the House of Representatives refuses to allow us to debate and vote on it.

I urge my Republican colleagues to persuade your Republican leadership here in the House to allow debate and a vote on the Democrats' Patients' Bill of Rights.

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