Frank Pallone: “If I could recapture my time, this was done, as the gentleman pointed out, years ago when HMOs and managed care…”

“If I could recapture my time, this was done, as the gentleman pointed out, years ago when HMOs and managed care organizations were not the vehicle for most Americans to get their health insurance. Now this loophole which was there has grown into a tremendous loophole that exists actually for most Americans. I do not know what was being thought of at the time when this was voted on, but the bottom line is the circumstances have changed now, because so many more Americans are impacted by this loophole. I just wanted to say briefly, if I could, I am not sure that everyone understands when we talk about this inability to sue or this exemption, if you will, from liability, exactly what we mean. The problem is that you can only sue to recover the costs of whatever procedure was needed but denied. You cannot sue for damages. In other words, I will use an example. If you lose, say, an arm or a leg or an eye and you end up victimized for the rest of your life because your HMO denied you the care that could have saved the limb or the eye, you cannot sue for anything other than the cost of what the medical procedure to save the limb or the eye would have been. You cannot sue for losing the body part or for the deterioration of your health condition. So basically you are able to recover a very, very limited amount that does not help you to deal with the problem and the damages that you have suffered. That is really what we are talking about.”