Greg Ganske: “10 months ago this House of Representatives passed real patient protection legislation to correct HMO abuses. We passed…”

“10 months ago this House of Representatives passed real patient protection legislation to correct HMO abuses. We passed the Norwood-Dingell-Ganske Bipartisan Consensus Managed Care Reform Act of 1999 with a vote of 275 to 151. So, Members ask, why is that bill not law yet? Why is not the congressional leadership leaning on the chairman of the conference committee to hold meetings? Is the conference dead? If so, then Senator Nickles should say so, so that we can move beyond the failure of the conferences committee. Mr. Speaker, every day that goes by without passage into law of a real patient protection bill means that people are being harmed by HMOs that care more about their bottom line, more about their most recent stock quotes on Wall Street, than they care about patients. Let me give some examples of people who have been harmed by HMOs. Before coming to Congress, I was a reconstructive surgeon. I took care of little children that were born with birth defects like this little baby with a cleft lip and palate. Do my colleagues know that in the last several years, more than 50 percent of the surgeons who care for children born with this birth defect have had cases like these refused by HMOs, who call this a 'cosmetic deformity'? This is a birth defect. The operation to repair this would be to restore towards normalcy. That is not a cosmetic case under any definition.”