Lynn C. Woolsey: “5 years ago the Republicans defeated President Clinton's health care reform bill. They claimed it would allow the…”

“5 years ago the Republicans defeated President Clinton's health care reform bill. They claimed it would allow the Federal Government to interfere with the doctor-patient relationship. Yet when the same relationship was threatened by a corporate bureaucracy, Republicans last year offered legislation that did nothing to protect the sanctity of choices made by doctors and their patients. It is the same story in the 106th Congress. Democrats have been waiting 2 years to pass the Patients' Bill of Rights. Right now we are ready to work to improve Americans' access to quality health care. Right now, today, we are ready to make consumer protections real for all Americans. Although many States have passed legislation making patchwork protections State-by-State, this patchwork does not provide a good fix for over 160 million Americans, Americans who need health care reform. While there are many fine managed care organizations in my own district, and they are good, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California, on the leading edge of health care reform, too many horror stories are all too well known across this country. Doctors tell us real-life horror stories about how they are gagged by insurance companies that dictate what they can tell their patients about treatment options. They tell us that a patient's treatment decisions are often overruled by a clerk and that patients are denied a specialist's care.”