Lynn C. Woolsey: “We should not be surprised, because a year ago, November 1997, let me read to you from the New York Times. Business and…”

“We should not be surprised, because a year ago, November 1997, let me read to you from the New York Times. Business and insurance lobbyists who helped kill President Clinton's health plan in 1994 are mobilizing a new campaign to block more modest proposals that would set Federal standards for quality of care. Republican leaders of Congress are urging the lobbyists to step up their activities against an array of managed care reform bills, backed by consumer advocates as a way to protect patients in a turbulent medical market. That was the first. Then the times reported on October 22, 1997 that Melody Harnad, a Federal Affairs Counsel at the Health Insurance Association of America, summarized the situation in a confidential memo to her supervisor, the vice president of the association, and she said, The message we are getting from the House and Senate GOP leadership is that we are in a war and need to start fighting like we are in a war. Republican leadership is now engaged on this issue and is issuing strong directives to all players in the insurance and employer community to get activated. Well, I would like to say that there was a lot of fear in 1993 when I was first sworn into the House of Representatives, a fear of a single payer national health care system.…”