Charles Norwood: “It seems to me that it has been years in my life till we get to this day. I have wanted this to happen a long time. I am…”

“It seems to me that it has been years in my life till we get to this day. I have wanted this to happen a long time. I am saddened deeply by what I hear and see happening in this room today. I had hoped that all of us would recognize the importance of protecting human beings' lives, the importance of correcting the malfunctioned ERISA laws of 1974 and could come together and actually offer good patient protections that the people of this country so deserve. But I hear over and over again demagoguery, politicization, misrepresentation, total untruths, just simply getting it wrong and not telling it right, and I am saddened by that. The Dingell-Ganske bill has good patient protections in it. I do not question that. I know that it does. It is imperfect, however. The Republican bill has excellent patient protections in it, though it, too, is also imperfect.”