Charles Norwood: “I think we ought to vote this amendment down. Is this about money? Of course it is about money. People who are going…”

“I think we ought to vote this amendment down. Is this about money? Of course it is about money. People who are going broke are concerned about that. I have been involved in managed care a few years. I can tell the Members right now it is a lot easier to stay home and go fishing than go broke, because their choice is to go broke or give bad care. That is the choices they give us. I have always wanted to tell this story. I hate to tell it when nobody is awake. It is a story basically about what this is all about. It has occurred since I have been in Congress. In 1996, Concordia Dental Insurance Company won the bid from the United States government to care for all the dependent personnel for our military across the country, a $1 billion contract. There is a little town in eastern North Carolina called Jacksonville, North Carolina. One hundred thousand people live there. Thirty thousand are civilians, 70,000 belong to the Marines. Now, there are only 30 dentists there, and Concordia comes to town and says, Guys, we are going to take two-thirds of your practice. We are go to cut everything that you are paid in half, your fees are cut in half. You do not have to take this contract. The gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn) says they could just walk away. How can they walk away?…”