Frank Pallone: “the reason that Medicare came into existence from the beginning is because the private insurance market was not covering…”

“the reason that Medicare came into existence from the beginning is because the private insurance market was not covering senior citizens. This effort to try to bring HMOs into the Medicare program has not completely failed, but essentially it has been a failure, because less than 15 percent of the seniors are able to find an HMO or tap into an HMO that they want to use. So the notion that the President puts out that somehow privatization, taking money and going into the private insurance markets is going to work, it is not based on the historical fact. It is not based on what we have had to do in order to get seniors coverage. The other thing that the gentleman from Texas mentioned that I thought was so important is he talked about the limitations that HMOs often put on the senior or the participant in an HMO program, not only in terms of choice of doctors or hospital, but also access to local pharmacies, that you cannot use your local pharmacy, or maybe you cannot use certain drugs. In other words, they will not allow you to use certain drugs because they are too expensive. In the Democratic program, we make it clear that you can go to your local pharmacy, because this is just like what you do with your doctor. You have a choice of doctors; you have a choice of pharmacies.”