Don Nickles: “I compliment my colleagues, Senator Collins and Senator Nelson, for offering an amendment which does recognize State…”

“I compliment my colleagues, Senator Collins and Senator Nelson, for offering an amendment which does recognize State roles in enforcement of insurance contracts. Unfortunately, I don't believe that is the case under the Breaux-Jeffords amendment. We will have to make a decision: Do we believe States should regulate insurance? Or should the Federal Government? Do we believe one size fits all? I understand there is a little change and there may be some improvement over the underlying bill, but the improvement is very small. The underlying bill, the McCain-Kennedy-Edwards bill, has language in it that says all these protections that we are getting ready to tell the States they have to do, the States have to have 'substantially equivalent' and 'as effective as' the standards we are getting ready to pass in the bill. I think the Senator from Maine said there are 1,100 State protections--State protections dealing with ER, State protections dealing with OB/GYN, State protections dealing with clinical trials, and so on. Almost none of the States has identical protections as what we are getting ready to mandate. Unfortunately, the language that now is being talked about may be an improvement. Instead of 'substantially equivalent,' it says 'substantially compliant' with the Federal standard.”