Don Nickles: “I beg to differ with my colleague. The original legislation set up said: States, do these things. We told the States to…”

“I beg to differ with my colleague. The original legislation set up said: States, do these things. We told the States to do them, and 45 States have done them. This is a temporary -- temporary -- encouragement to get the States to have portability. We did it; 45 States have done it. This was not to have HCFA micromanage State insurance plans throughout the land. That was not why this bill was passed. If they could not do that with 26 employees, then I would be surprised if they could do it with 65 employees. Some people are trying to take a bill that passed unanimously and say that gives us great authority to be able to micromanage all the health care plans in the States. That is not what we passed. That is not what we agreed to. What we told the States to do was put in portability and put in conversions, where you could convert to an individual plan. We did that; 45 States said yes; 5 still have not. That is temporary. Even the GAO report that was quoted by my colleague from Massachusetts said--he was quoting that report where the director who made the report said we may not have this need. We don't even know, because those five States may be in compliance, and once they sign up, we are done, they are done. My colleague is talking about mental parity. The States have that in their plans if they are complying.”