Robert Berry: “It is amazing to me, Mr. Speaker, that here we are, it is 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and we are doing special orders.…”

“It is amazing to me, Mr. Speaker, that here we are, it is 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and we are doing special orders. That is not what the American people sent us here to do. They sent us here to deal with things like the Patients' Bill of Rights, prescription drug coverage for our seniors, many other issues that we need to be taking care of. Yet here we are basically shut down at 5 o'clock in the evening. Mr. Speaker, 80 percent of the American people have private health insurance plans. They are enrolled in managed care plans. In many cases, they are required to be enrolled in managed care plans because their employers have contracted with these companies to achieve cost savings. We need managed care. We know that we have got to control the cost of health care. But it can be done right. We must leave the health care decisions to our professionals, the people that know what they are doing when they make a decision. It should not be left to someone with no training and their only objective is to save the insurance company money.”