David Thomas: “I wanted to go back to the remarks of the Senator from North Dakota as he talked about some of the issues that all of us…”

“I wanted to go back to the remarks of the Senator from North Dakota as he talked about some of the issues that all of us are concerned about, issues such as pharmaceuticals--how we make that work; issues such as Medicare--which needs, after these years, some real, examination, some changes so over time we can ensure provision of health services to all who are beneficiaries. No one argues with that. He also mentioned the Patients' Bill of Rights, which is interesting. I do not know of anyone in the Senate or the other body who is not for some form of the bill of rights. The unfortunate part is that there are some defining issues within that subject, defining issues that mean a lot in terms of where it goes in the future. The Senator failed to mention that. This is sort of the technique of those who favor more government. That is to simply talk about the title without talking about what is involved. We have had in the Senate for a good long time--the Presiding Officer has participated--in a conference report, language designed to bring out a Patients' Bill of Rights that we could pass. Frankly, the Senator from North Dakota and others have opposed that. One of the questions that is very important is whether or not it is going to be a bill of rights for patients or whether it is going to be a bill of rights for tort lawyers. If you have to go to court whenever there is a controversy, that is, of course, not what we seek to do.…”