John Dingell

Mr. DINGELL

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to join my colleague, Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, in introducing the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act of 1996. This legislation seeks to ensure that women and doctors--not insurance company bureaucrats--will decide how long a woman who has a mastectomy should remain in the hospital. Breast cancer is physically and emotionally devastating. As Abigail Trafford stated in the Washington Post, ``Breast cancer holds a unique place in the constellation of diseases. First, because it involves the breast, it challenges not just a woman's life, but her identity. [The breast] is the functioning symbol of motherhood and nurturing the young.'' For any woman, facing breast cancer is one of her most frightening experiences. Learning that she must have a mastectomy, a surgical procedure that will change her body and her life, can be traumatic. An insurance company insults a woman facing one of life's great crises when it decrees that she must leave the hospital whether she is healed or not. I realize that this legislation has little chance of enactment before this Congress concludes. Representative DeLauro and I, along with many other Members, have placed this on the table because we wanted every member of this body to think about it for the next 3 months. At the beginning of the 105th Congress, we will introduce similar legislation. It is our intention over this time to research the best, most effective ways to accomplish the bill's goals. That includes making sure we do not preempt responsible State legislation and that we define health plans to be consistent with the Kassebuam-Kennedy health insurance reform bill and with the MOMS bill providing 48-hour maternity stays that I introduced earlier this year, which was enacted as part of the VA-HUD appropriation bill. Whether a patient is a young woman giving birth to a baby, or a woman having surgery to treat breast cancer, insurers have no right to interfere in decisions about treatments that are medically necessary and appropriate. This legislation seeks to make care, rather than cost, the driving principle of our health care system.

Mr. DINGELL

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I have no objection to my good friend renewing his unanimous consent request.

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, we do not have any further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I strongly support this bill. I want to express my respect and affection for my good friend from Florida. We are not always able to keep track of the way these matters move around here, and so I always out of great affection, some respect of the very high character and desire to work with my Republican colleagues, I always ask questions to try to find out what it is we are doing here during these closing days. I would observe parenthetically that we just checked with the staff of the gentleman from California [Mr. Waxman], and they have not heard a word about this bill. So I hope the gentleman from Florida will excuse my inability to respond as speedily and as sharply and crisply as I might have liked to have done. In any event, the bill is a good bill and we support this excellent legislation.

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. (Mr. DINGELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, if I could continue on my reservation of objection, is this the bill that was the amendment, that is exactly the same as the amendment? This is a different bill? Oh. Well, I will not object, and I gather, then, Mr. Speaker, that we are proceeding under the suspension rules and I will be immensely cooperative.

Mr. DINGELL. Well, I apologize because it is my intent to be helpful in every particular to my good friend from Florida. I am trying to understand. This is a bill that was reported out of the committee?

Mr. DINGELL. Simply to continue to have this very helpful colloquy with my good friend from Florida.

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the right to object.

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I do not want to object, but I do want to reserve the right to object simply to ask questions of my dear friend from Florida, for whom I have the most enormous respect and affection.

Mr. DINGELL. I am not quite sure which one of my questions the Chair is answering. Are we answering my parliamentary inquiry as to whether the hour has passed, or whether this is appropriate, or is this a unanimous-consent request? Could the Chair help me, please?

Mr. DINGELL. Has the hour passed, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. DINGELL. It is a motion, then; am I correct?

Mr. DINGELL. Is this a unanimous-consent request, Mr. Speaker, or is this a motion?

Mr. DINGELL. I have no objection to proceeding. I am just trying to establish if we are dealing with the regular order here, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I do not want to lose my rights here. I reserve a point of order and make a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry, and reserving a point of order. Is the hour that we are supposed to proceed in the way of this----

Mr. DINGELL. It would be very wonderful if the gentleman would speak to the staff of the minority side of the committee. I am sure Mr. Waxman is being informed of this out in California. We are seeing some rather extraordinary events. Just to help me a little more, and I will continue my reservation of objection----

Mr. DINGELL. I am told Mr. Waxman is in California.

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, it is strange that this is the first that I am hearing of it. I do have a little to do, as my good friend knows, with the business of the minority, and I am happy to hear that there was some consultation. Perhaps I should speak to the minority staff about this.

Mr. DINGELL. But the gentleman said that there was consultation with the minority staff?

Mr. DINGELL. By unanimous consent.

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, continuing my reservation of objection, it is normally considered appropriate to consult with the minority before unanimous-consent requests are made. Was there any consultation on this?

Mr. DINGELL. We marked it up?

Mr. DINGELL

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Markey], for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentleman for the outstanding job he has done on this, and also our chairman, the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Bliley], and the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Oxley]. I also want to express my particular affection and respect for the distinguished gentleman from Texas [Mr. Fields] who is up, I think, for the last time tonight. He is a superb Member of this body. He will be missed. He has earned the respect and affection of his colleagues by dint of his integrity, his honesty, and the way in which he has handled legislation. I will miss him, although I will rejoice that he will continue to be my friend. This is a good bill. It represents a huge amount of hard work, leadership, and effort. It is, as I mentioned, the last security bill for our good friend, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Fields], and a fitting tribute to both him and to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Markey], and to our chairman, the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Bliley], because of the way they have worked together to see to it that this bill could come to fruition. Mr. Speaker, the National Securities Improvements Act is an important piece of legislation. It enjoys, and properly so, bipartisan support, as well as the support of the industry. It is deregulatory in a proper fashion, while at the same time preserving and enhancing investor protections, something which is the real purpose of the American securities market and the American securities law. Mr. Speaker, I am, I will observe, deeply disappointed in the investment advisers provisions. No fault attaches to my colleagues on this side, but rather, the fault exists over in the other body. This body and the other body, because of the impasse on this matter, have passed up an opportunity to better police investment advisers, financial planners, and to give the SEC the resources and regulatory tools that are needed to put in jail or to put out of business a number of scoundrels, crooks, swindlers, and others who, very frankly, are advantaging themselves and enriching themselves at the expense of the little investor. To do that is a great shame. In that, there is one significant failure in this legislation. The bill before us on these matters essentially maintains the status quo. It does not contain the additional resources and investor protections sought by the House in this matter. Indeed, these provisions were passed by the House twice before. Nonetheless, no discredit attaches in this matter to any of my colleagues on the committee. They did their best in trying to protect and preserve these provisions, and they are important, as I reiterate, to the little investors in this country, who are being taken advantage of by a number of unprincipled, irresponsible, and incompetent people who function in this industry to their own great benefit and enrichment. In any event, I urge the passing of this bill. I salute the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Fields]. I salute my colleagues who have worked on it. I do want to salute the staff, which has worked very hard to bring us to where we are today.