What is it that has the health insurance lobby quaking in its boots? Why are they so afraid?

Could it be that they’re afraid of paying for someone’s cancer screen? Are they terrified of paying for someone’s surgery? Is it the threat of paying for a prescription drug that has them petrified?

Or maybe they’re afraid of letting ordinary people make the decisions that affect their own lives.

Maybe they’re afraid of the mother whose child has leukemia and wants the pediatrician to decide what care her child needs.

Or is it the terminally ill cancer patient who has no other treatment available to save his life, other than a clinical trial?

Maybe it’s the woman in her second trimester of pregnancy whose doctor is dropped from the health plan. Or the woman with breast cancer who has a mastectomy and is sent home that same day. Or the man with a stroke who needs follow up visits to a physical and speech therapist to regain full function.

The Norwood-Dingell bill would help each of these people get or continue the health care they need. Not one of the other substitutes we’ll consider can truthfully make that claim.

Charlie Norwood and Greg Ganske and I have been working on these issues for years. Our bill has been thoroughly vetted. We’ve even incorporated a number of suggestions from Members including Mr. Coburn and Mr. Houghton who will offer their own substitutes.

You’re going to hear a lot of rhetoric about lawsuits in the next few hours of debate, as if that were the only difference between these bills. Yes, we allow patients to hold their health plans accountable if they cause harm or death when they make a medical decision.

All we’ve done in this bill is the same thing they’ve done in Texas, in a law enacted during the tenure of Governor George W. Bush. In the two years that law has been in effect, Texas has had all of five lawsuits. And the cost, according to the independent accounting firm of Coopers and Lybrand, amounts to 13 cents a month.