Political Quotes

“I was so happy last night to hear the President in his State of the Union speech talk about giving our constituents, the people of this country, the opportunity to choose the doctor of their choice and, together with that doctor, decide what kind of treatment they want. Over the past week and a half, back in the Fourth Congressional District of Pennsylvania, which is around the city of Pittsburgh, I have been holding some fact-finding sessions on health care. The reason we did this is because we kept getting calls, either from doctors or other health care providers, who were distraught, and that is the only way to describe them, because they could not be included in an HMO network where their patients had purchased the insurance. On the other side you had patients who, because of the high cost of insurance, are being herded into HMOs, thinking that they have the choice of their doctor, only to find out that they have a primary care physician that they can choose among a group, or one is assigned to them, and only that physician can decide whether they can go to another doctor, whether they can see a specialist, or what hospital they can go to.”