Frank Pallone: “in just 3 days, this House will adjourn without having brought to the floor the Patients' Bill of Rights, the Democrats'…”

“in just 3 days, this House will adjourn without having brought to the floor the Patients' Bill of Rights, the Democrats' legislation for comprehensive HMO reform. I bemoan the fact that that is the case. I think that this legislation and the need to address the issue of HMO reform is really the preeminent issue that needs to be addressed in this House, in this Congress, in this session of Congress. I have to say that the Republican leadership since the beginning of the year has made many promises with regard to the Patients' Bill of Rights and the whole issue of HMO reform. First, the Speaker said that we would follow the normal committee process and an HMO reform bill would have hearings in the relevant committees and have a markup in committee and come to the floor in the normal way, but that has not happened. Then, as Members know, in the other body basically the Democrats forced the issue, forced the other body to bring up HMO reform. Unfortunately, the bill that was finally passed was not real reform, was ineffective, was a sham, but the impetus, if you will, that at least some sort of HMO reform would be brought up in the Senate caused the Speaker and the Republican leadership just a few weeks ago after the Senate took action and had a hearing and had a markup on the floor, basically forced the Speaker to say that a bill would come to the floor, an HMO reform bill would come to the floor in the House of Representatives sometime before the August recess.”