Adam Schiff: “I rise in support of the Norwood-Dingell-Ganske Patients' Bill of Rights. For 5 years now, advocates of better health…”

“I rise in support of the Norwood-Dingell-Ganske Patients' Bill of Rights. For 5 years now, advocates of better health care have advocated for the real Patients' Bill of Rights, only to see that legislation shot down in this House. This year, the fight goes on, and this year, as in the fight with campaign finance reform, opponents of a real Patients' Bill of Rights have offered a phoney. They cannot defeat it directly, so they try to defeat it indirectly with a watered-down, industry-supported version. Mr. Speaker, we must reject this. To use the parlance of the industry itself, we ought to tell the industry, we need strong medicine to restore the relationship between patients and their physicians, and that bill, that alternative, is simply not on the formulary. That bill exceeds the scope of coverage. That bill simply cannot get in the door without referrals to specialists. We need a real Patients' Bill of Rights. I worked on a real Patients' Bill of Rights in California and, like my colleague, we passed that bill, as in 30 other States, and now the alternative here, the Fletcher bill, would undermine the work of so many States around the country that have worked to foster the relationship between patient and physician. This cannot be allowed to happen.”