Frank Pallone: “The Republican bill, as the gentleman knows, that the leadership wants to bring out leaves out this basic right, if you…”

“The Republican bill, as the gentleman knows, that the leadership wants to bring out leaves out this basic right, if you will, or basic protection that we have in the real patient bill of rights that says doctors can communicate freely with their patients without fear of retaliation by the HMO. That guarantee, or the gag rule, is not in the Fletcher bill. The other thing that is not in the Republican bill, it also fails to protect against HMOs when they have these financial incentives where they say to the doctor, if you do not provide a certain amount of care, or if you do not have your patients use the hospital or certain procedures and save us money, then you'll get a financial incentive, sort of a rebate of some sort, there is nothing in the Fletcher bill that guarantees that those kinds of arrangements could not continue. We primarily tonight have been talking about the patients. Of course, this impacts the patients as well, but there are a lot of protections for physicians so they can practice freely that are in the Dingell-Ganske bill that are not in this Republican bill.”