Frank Pallone: “Well, the gentlewoman has brought up and highlighted, I think, the biggest gimmick of all with regard to this Republican…”

“Well, the gentlewoman has brought up and highlighted, I think, the biggest gimmick of all with regard to this Republican bill. Essentially my understanding is that at least on the Senate side, if not on the House side, that the Republican bill only applies to ERISA plans, and of course ERISA plans are those that are preempted by the Federal Government because they are self-insured essentially, and these are the very ones that we discussed earlier where there is no enforcement because the patient cannot sue the HMO if they have denied care. So what you have here is hollow patient protections. Not only does the Republican bill limit the patient protections and not include some of the most important ones that the Democrats have talked about, like access to specialty care, for example, but, in addition, by limiting the patient protections to ERISA plans they guaranteed that the patient protections would never be enforced, because if you are in ERISA, you will have the patient protections, albeit limited, but you will not be able to sue so there will be no guarantee of the patient protections.”