Don Nickles: “I mentioned yesterday that HCFA, the Health Care Finance Administration, has over 4,000 employees. That is a lot. Now…”

“I mentioned yesterday that HCFA, the Health Care Finance Administration, has over 4,000 employees. That is a lot. Now, the Health and Human Services Department has 58,500 employees. Now, if they need to move a few employees around, they can do it if there is an emergency. There is not really an emergency. Frankly, compliance with HCFA, the so-called Kassebaum-Kennedy bill, which deals with portability, also deals with moving from group to individual plans. Most States have complied. The State of Massachusetts has not complied. But I don't think that we should presume the State of Massachusetts doesn't care about their employees or about their people in their State. The State of California hasn't, the State of Missouri hasn't, the State of Michigan hasn't, but every one of those States has pretty advanced policies dealing with health care. Now, some would presume because they haven't enacted legislation exactly as we told them to do, that we now need to have Federal regulators go in and run their insurance departments. I do not think that is the case.”