Political Quotes

“we are now debating the crucial issue of patients' rights. For better or worse, we have a health care system that increasingly uses managed care to organize and deliver services. Over the next week or two or more, we are here to debate what we need to do to protect patients and to restore balance to our new system dominated by managed care companies, whether insurance companies or HMOs. Let's be clear; patients need protections. For a variety of reasons-- bad customer service, bad incentives that lead to a conflict between care and the bottom line, and simple carelessness and neglect--too many patients have been mistreated by their health care insurance companies. That is why every State in the Nation has acted on this measure to provide protections because we have seen this mistreatment range from the heartbreaking to the mundane. We have all heard the rare but tragic horror stories in which a managed care company denies desperately needed care, sometimes with catastrophic results for the patient.”