Frank Pallone

I feel very strongly, Madam Speaker, that, to date, President Bush has failed to back up this rhetoric that he used during the campaign with any actions. This is an administration of, by and for the special interests. I see the oil…

I think we were very hopeful during the campaign when we heard President Bush then talk about these issues, the HMO reform, prescription drug benefit, that we were going to see quick action on it. Even in the beginning of the Congress, at…

Yet the Republican plan and his plan is a voucher. It is not under Medicare. It a voucher that you get if you are below a certain income, not for most people, but if you are below a certain income, to go out and try to find an HMO or…

I listened to that third debate between the two presidential candidates, and I was very upset to hear Governor Bush say he was providing a Medicare prescription plan. I believe he used the term Medicare.

What I find is a lot of times they will try to address maybe the individual's problem who comes to their office and see what they can do to help, but the bottom line is that everyone is suffering from this. Everybody in an HMO has the…

Absolutely. I do not think there is any question that if there were a vote once again here or a vote in the Senate that this would pass, would go to the President and be signed into law.

That is correct. I would say even further that it is quite obvious from the composition of the Senate right now that if the bill were brought to the floor of the Senate and we just did not have a conference, just took the House bill and…

Also I wanted to mention, it has to be so difficult as a physician with these HMOs when a decision is made that you think is not in the best interests of the patient. I imagine you go through that many times and this is really sad.

The reason why the prices are so much more here is exactly based on what our colleague from Texas said, and that is that since there are price controls and negotiating power for citizens in other countries, the only place left on the…

Well, Mr. Speaker, we have the perfect example in Nevada which, I believe around March or so of this year, passed a plan that is almost exactly the same as what the Republicans in the House proposed. The insurance industry told the Nevada…

Absolutely. And the thing that disturbs me most about it, and I know that the gentleman is very knowledgeable about this, is that the fact of the matter is that every time the Republicans have come up with a proposal to deal with the…

The irony of it is that the insurance companies testified before your Committee on Ways and Means and before my Committee on Commerce and said that they would not sell the policies. They were not interested in it.

Each year over 660,000 people become ill and more than 300 die from a single contaminant in a single food. That is the bacterium Salmonella in eggs. More than 170 outbreaks of Salmonella illness from eggs have been documented in the past…

On the eve of last year's meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle, I was joined by 11 of my colleagues in this House on a bipartisan basis in calling on U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky to help move the accession of…

I am convinced, of course, that they are well-intentioned, but the bottom line is that the Republican leadership proposal is illusionary. It is not going to really help the average senior citizen. That kind of hoax, if you will, even if it…

I could not believe the enthusiasm that existed in that school. One of the things that they had, which I think is somewhat unique, is that all the kids were wearing school uniforms, which is something that I know that the President has…

I share her praise for the President's equal pay initiative. If a civil rights violation occurs, there has to be enforcement. Otherwise it is meaningless. That is true whether it is the environment or whatever it happens to be. So many…

I totally agree. It is interesting because I remember 6 years ago when President Clinton first talked about his universal health care plan, he had a very important proposal in there to expand programs for veterans as well. Again, we have…

But every indication I have today from the Republican leadership, not from the Republicans that support the Patients' Bill of Rights but from the leadership, is that they are going to try to muck this up and make patient protections…

I hope so. Madam Speaker, again, I just keep pointing out that the only reason that we start to agitate as Democrats is because we cannot get some of these good proposals brought forward. That is certainly true with the Patients' Bill of…

I have to say I know that we have been very disappointed with the Republican leadership on a number of health care initiatives, most importantly the Patients' Bill of Rights that they refuse to bring up, so that now we have got to actually…

They were mentioned. My understanding is that because of the savings, as well as the money that is going to be made available in the surplus, because of the surplus, some of those concerns can be addressed.

It took almost 2 weeks in the other body, the Senate, for the Democrats to insist that the Patients' Bill of Rights be brought up. They almost had to filibuster in order to make sure that the bill was brought up. I understand that when we…

I think the answer is very simple. That is that the Republican leadership in the case of the Patients' Bill of Rights, the HMO reform, simply does not want to bring up the bill because they do not want it to pass. They know if the…

The other thing, too, is the insurance industry keeps saying, why do we have to do this if the States are doing it? Why do we have to do it on the Federal level? Of course, as the gentleman points out, most plans do not come under the…