Greg Ganske: “let me speak for just a little bit about the Patients' Bill of Rights and where we are. This continues to be a problem…”

“let me speak for just a little bit about the Patients' Bill of Rights and where we are. This continues to be a problem that is affecting millions of people, literally every day, the problem about being treated fairly by their HMOs. I want to point out that some HMOs are being fair to their patients, but it is also fair to say that some are not. This cuts across all brackets, all groups of people, Republicans, Democrats, men, women. Just about every day, somebody comes up to me and tells me a story about the kind of problems they have had. Just a few days ago, a woman in Des Moines, Iowa, came up to me nearly in tears. She has had breast cancer. She has gone through chemotherapy. She needs a test that her doctor recommended, but her HMO refused. She has been, as she said, on an emotional roller coaster trying to get this medical test done. So she went through an appeals process. She thought it was authorized. She was up, she was happy, and then the rug was pulled out from underneath her because then her HMO turned her down. Mr. Speaker, a woman who has had breast cancer and who has had chemotherapy and who has been through a lot, and she has carried this fight with her HMO by herself, she told me, you know, Greg, I have never asked my husband to do this, but the other day, I said to my husband, you are just going to have to carry the load for me on this. That HMO has just worn me out. I do not have the energy to fight them anymore. Will you do this for me?”