Rob Andrews: “I first wanted to thank and congratulate the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr.…”

“I first wanted to thank and congratulate the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) for their leadership in bringing this legislation to the floor. It is worthy of unanimous support of the House, and I enthusiastically support the bill. My amendment speaks to a very traditional value and a new technology. The traditional value is enlightened consumer choice. When we buy a toaster or an automobile or a house, we have all kinds of information available to us about the quality of the product that we are buying. There are government and private for-profit and private nonprofit sources of such information readily available. So should such information be available with respect to health care plans; and that is where this traditional value is combined with a new technology, the World Wide Web. The purpose of my amendment is to call on the AHCPR to make available on a web site on the World Wide Web a collection of information offered by nonprofit and public groups that evaluate and give information about the quality of health care plans to consumers.”