Frank Pallone: “The first one is, why do we need a national bill? Why do we not just pass it at the State level? The gentleman from…”

“The first one is, why do we need a national bill? Why do we not just pass it at the State level? The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green) sort of alluded to the need for Federal protection because of a law called ERISA. ERISA was a law passed many years ago to protect pensions, and it is now used by many corporations to protect their involvement in health care so that it cannot be touched by insurance commissioners in States. They say the insurance commissioner has to go away. We are covered by the Federal law called ERISA, and you cannot monkey with how we do our health care. So the managed care companies are hiding behind ERISA all over this country, and that is why we need a national law. It is not sufficient to do it just in Texas or in my own State of Washington, where we just passed a law.”