David Thomas: “we are here today with a Presidential veto threat, and I am here to address that provision in the Medicare and Medicaid…”

“we are here today with a Presidential veto threat, and I am here to address that provision in the Medicare and Medicaid area, because in the President's message, he said, as several of my Democratic colleagues have said, that the bill fails to attach accountability provisions to the health maintenance organizations. I am sorry to tell my friends who made that statement that they are simply flat-out wrong. I hope they did not do it for political purposes. I hope they did it because they were either uninformed or misinformed. On page 143 in the bill, on lines 17 and 18, the language contained therein is the language supplied to us by the administration in terms of their request for accountability. Now, it seems strange with all of the arguments that there has not been much discussion between the administration and those of us that are charged with the responsibility as the majority to work with the minority, which we did in the Committee on Ways and Means subcommittee, by unanimously passing out the provision. It says, any of the dollars in this bill sent to Medicare HMOs can only be used to reduce premiums, cost-sharing, enhance the benefits of the beneficiaries, or utilize the stabilization fund. Every dollar that is added must be converted to benefits for individuals. The President also says that there are other health care providers that are shorted by the basis of the HMO provisions.”