Political Quotes

“I looked forward to this day when we could have a Patients' Bill of Rights on the floor, but after seeing what happened, I am so disappointed and so frustrated, and I think that is what is going to happen with the American people. Instead of a Patients' Bill of Rights, we have a patients' bill of wrongs. We have a Patients' Bill of Rights that is masquerading, but it is really the patients' bill of wrongs. What it does is it transfers the decision-making from the State courts, where in Texas we have it now, to under Federal rules in State courts; and that is wrong, and nowhere in our jurisprudence history do we have that. So it is going to make it harder. It gives a presumption for the HMO so they are right and you have to prove them wrong. We are actually going to increase litigation. My colleagues do not want more litigation. When you give that right to the insurance companies, you are going to make people hire an attorney just to go through the appeals process, and that is wrong. In Texas, we had a Patients' Bill of Rights for 4 years, very few lawsuits, 1,400 appeals, 52 percent in favor of the patient. So more than half the time, the HMO was wrong; and they are wrong today.”