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So what we are asking for is that there should not be a bar or a closed door to the need of our citizens to get health care in this great country where they are saying in one voice, whether
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Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Houston. That is so true. That is why this is not an issue of economics or demographics or anything else, whether one makes $100,000 a year, $25,000 a year. If one is in an HMO, one's health care can be delayed, it can be denied, unless we pass a strong managed care HMO reform bill.
One of the issues I talked about a little bit earlier, and I want to address particularly, because I do not know if my colleague has heard about it, but I have, and particularly in meeting with some of my employers in the district, and that is again, their fears that they will be sued. I want to quote from the bill, section 302 of the bill that passed this House that says: nothing in this subsection should be construed as a cause of action under State law for the failure to provide an item or service which is specifically excluded under the group health plan for the employer. It does not authorize any cause of action against the employer or other plan sponsor maintaining a group health plan or against the employee of such person.
The intent of this legislation is not to sue the employer or sue the employee of that employer unless they are making those medical decisions, unless they are involved in it. Again, my real-life experience before getting elected to Congress is that employers do not make that kind of decision. Employers go out and buy an insurance plan, what they can afford; and they do not decide whether someone should go to this doctor or that doctor or this hospital or that hospital. That is up to the plan to make that decision, with the premiums that they charge.
So this bill actually prohibits lawsuits against the employer or the employee of that employer, based on health care, unless that employer is making that decision. Again, that is not the case. I do not know how we can make it any stronger. Frankly, during the debate last year on this legislation, I asked some employers, I said, if you can make it any stronger, please give me the language and we will make every effort to put it in. I never received any language.
So this bill, the Dingell-Norwood bill, does not allow for employer lawsuits. So that is one of those straw men that get thrown up oftentimes during legislative debate. But managed care reform, real managed care reform, over 80 percent of the people support: Democrats, Republicans, Easterners, Westerners, Midwesterners. And that is why this Congress needs to pass it. If it is not in the year 2000, then hopefully the voters and the folks will remember this November that this Congress needs to be responsive to their requirements, particularly when we see 80 percent, and we hear the examples that we have given today and heard about.
That is why it is so important that this Congress address a real Patients' Bill of Rights and include the 5 issues that we want to make sure they have: independent appeals, so they can get a timely medical decision; that we can eliminate those gag clauses; that we can have access to specialists; like my colleague said, women can go to their OB-GYN, not only for a specialist, but for their primary care; adequate emergency room service, and again, the example of not having to pass by an emergency room, or going to an emergency room with pain and then the doctors find out that you have some other illness and say no, you should have gone to your regular doctor. That is not the case. The issue is that they were experiencing pain originally, and whether it was the thyroid or heart or whatever should not matter.
The last point, the best one, we can pass all of the legislation that we want in this bill, but if it does not hold the medical decision-maker accountable, if the person is telling that person no, you should not get that test, if that person is not accountable, and again, they have been accountable under Texas law now for 2 1/2 years and we have not seen a huge number of lawsuits. Again, Texans are not normally shy about going to court if they feel that they are aggrieved.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that very excellent summary. I just wanted to go back to the point about pain, because the new science from medical professionals is that we should listen to the signals of pain. Just as the gentleman has indicated, here we have HMOs who tell us to go back home because in the example that I gave, she thought she was having a heart attack, but it happened to be thyroid, so that is contradictory to what the medical professionals are telling us, which is to listen to pain symptoms and act on them and not to ignore them.
Let me just add that we holistically need to look over all at health care, and I hope at some time we will be able to pass the mental health parity bill. I think all of us have been supportive of that. That has not come to the floor. It has been filed every year, but we have not done that.
Then, one of the issues that we need to continue to address, and that is why we should know that we are not solving everything with the Patients' Bill of Rights, so people who are fearful of it should realize that there are still issues to deal with.
I have an omnibus mental health bill for children called Give a Kid a Chance, which is to give greater access to mental health care to our children and our families. There is certainly evidence through what we have seen in gun violence and children using guns that families are in great need of support systems. Mental health is a health issue, but we have not yet been able to address the question of mental health the way we should in this Congress.
So I hope that this Special Order today emphasizes not only the HMO reform, but the overall need of addressing health care issues. I am looking forward to bringing my mental health bill both to committee and then to the floor of the House. But I want to do that as we move the Patients' Bill of Rights along, as well as the prescription drug discount, and finally address the questions that Americans have asked us to address.
I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me and for bringing to the attention of this Congress the need for HMO reform. I am happy to yield back to the gentleman.
Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague again, because there is no doubt that this Congress needs to address a broad range of health care. We have a bill that passed the House, that is a strong Patients' Bill of Rights; and we need to take one step at a time, Mr. Speaker. If the conference committee will come out with a strong Dingell-Norwood bill just like passed this House, then we can put this issue behind us and we can address health care for veterans; we can address mental health and get on to other issues that are important.
But, first of all, when people pay a premium, they have to make sure that they receive the health care that they are paying for; and that is what is so important about this Patients' Bill of Rights. They have to know that when they pay the money for their premium, that they are getting health care and not just getting a denial slip or delayed health care, because someone is making a decision that they are looking at the bottom line instead of the health care of that person.
Mr. Speaker, again, I thank not only our Democratic leader, but also the colleagues of mine who have been here tonight.
Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, last session, this House passed a sound and responsible managed care reform bill with solid support from both sides of the aisle.
The conference committee has finally met and the appointees are now negotiating critical provisions such as direct access to OBGYNs for women and direct access to pediatricians for children.
Faced with a daunting number of managed care reform bills, our fellow lawmakers in all 50 state legislatures are urging us to take action soon.
Their pleas echo those of millions of patients, family members, and providers who feel disenfranchised and exploited by the Big Business of Big Medicine.
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These are real patients with real diseases, real pain, and real fear.
We have heard for so long about the onerous obstacles that patients face in getting the care they need.
We have come together as a House to pass sound legislative remedies.
Now let us finish the job we began last session without further delay.
Mr. Speaker, these patients don't have any more time to wait, nor should they have to wait ..... We owe it to them to finally deliver the relief that is promised in the Norwood-Dingell bill.
And the Patient's Bill of Rights isn't just about patients--it's about beleaguered health care providers gagged from speaking their expert opinion and prohibited from practicing to give the best medicine they know.
No single piece of legislation passed during this Congress has more support and more urgency than the Patients' bill of rights.
I call on my colleagues assigned to the conference committee to waste not one more minute in bringing this legislation to the desk of the President, so that the Patients' Bill of Rights can become law.
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