Political Quotes

“over the next hour, we will be hearing from lots of Members talking about not only the vote we took today on the motion to instruct conferees, but talk about the need for managed care reform and HMO reform. Because Congress, being out of session since late November, and having passed the managed care reform bill actually in early October, here we are February 1 and we are back in session with no hope in sight of the conference committee actually meeting. They have not met for 4 months. Madam Speaker, that is the concern we have. That issue is still on the front burner for the American people. That is why today there was a great deal of time spent on H.R. 2990, instructing conferees on managed care that was authored by the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry) who was trying to move that issue further along. In fact, since the motion to instruct passed, Madam Speaker, we hopefully will see our conference committee meeting not maybe at the end of February or March, but hopefully in the next 10 days; instead of seeing the delay, delay, delay that we have seen over the last 4 months, and not just over the last 4 months but over the last number of years whenever the House has considered managed care reform, even if a strong bill passes like it did this last time. And, particularly, when we see that the conference committee appointees from the majority side, not one of them voted for the bill that passed this House in early October.”