Political Quotes

“I thank my leader for making what I think is a very rational request, that we take up a Patients' Bill of Rights and we have the option of amending such a bill so that we can in fact help the majority of the American people who are telling us pretty unequivocally here they want quality health care. I have a brief comment and then a question for my colleague and my leader. Mr. Leader, I want you to know about a story in my State. There are so many of them, and I have told many of them on the floor. This particular story, I think, is quite poignant because it has a good ending to it. But it makes a very important point and I think our Presiding Officer who is sitting in the Chair, our President of the day, would be interested in this as a physician. A little girl named Carly Christie got a very rare type of cancer many years ago, about 9 years ago. It required some very delicate surgery that only a couple of specialists had ever really performed before. It was a cancerous tumor on her kidney. Her dad went to the HMO and said, ``Look, I know the doctors who know how to do this and I am going to go and have this operation done.'' The HMO said, ``No, you are not. We have a general surgeon, and the general surgeon can do this operation.'' ``Well, has the general surgeon ever done such an operation before?'' ``No.'' And Mr. Christie said, ``This is my flesh and blood. This is my child. I want her to live.”