Political Quotes

“again, this amendment involves some very important rights with respect to consumer protection as it relates to health care practitioners, health care plans and the fact that it appears that some physicians are actually gagged in terms of what they can tell their patients about their illnesses and their treatment. These gag provisions often are included in contracts for purely financial reasons. They limit the kinds of therapies that physicians or other licensed health care practitioners may recommend. It can restrict a practitioner from recommending a patient consult a physician outside a plan or go to a facility outside the plan's network. In addition, these kinds of approaches may even prohibit a practitioner from discussing financial incentives or penalties physicians may be subject to based on treatments that are recommended or ignored, in the case of an individual physician. Mr. President, the preamble of the Hippocratic oath tells physicians, "First, do no harm." The message of these gag restrictions, unfortunately, is, "First, support the bottom line." That is not good health care, and it is certainly not good managed care.”