Frank Pallone: “I think this issue of choice of doctors is so crucial to the whole emphasis that we as Democrats are putting on managed…”

“I think this issue of choice of doctors is so crucial to the whole emphasis that we as Democrats are putting on managed care reform. The President has talked about this, and, of course, as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green) mentioned, our health care task force, which is about to put out a bill that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) is going to be the lead sponsor of, talks about patient choice. I am not saying, and I do not think we can maybe say that, in a network, in an HMO network, that we have to guarantee in every case that we can choose any doctor we want.”