Judd Gregg: “the goal here should be this: When you go to see a doctor and you go to your HMO, if that is who covers you, you should…”

“the goal here should be this: When you go to see a doctor and you go to your HMO, if that is who covers you, you should expect to get good treatment. If you don't get good treatment, you should have relief. And you should expect to have a certain amount of flexibility as to who you see and especially with some very common events such as OB/GYN and areas such as that, where you should have the capacity as the patient to make some choices: your primary care provider, things such as that. That is all accomplishable. In fact, the bills that have been brought forward from our side of the aisle--some of them in a bipartisan way, such as the Breaux-Frist-Jeffords bill, last year's, the Nickles amendment, which did not have any Democratic support--have accomplished that. In the process of accomplishing that, we should not fundamentally undermine the interests of employers to participate in health insurance for their employees, which is what, unfortunately, the McCain bill does. And we should not do unnecessary and significant damage to States rights which is, unfortunately, what the McCain bill does. That is a whole other discussion. There are a variety of other problems. The goal can be accomplished, which is better health care and better protection of our patients and people who use our health care system without this very egregious, very intrusive, very litigious piece of law being passed.”