Clinton Tightens Medicare Rules (3/25/97)
Bierbauer: When Boomers Go Bust (3/10/97)
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Clinton Commission To Craft Health 'Bill Of Rights'
Panel will focus on consumer issues, quality of care
By Wolf Blitzer/CNN
WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, March 26) -- President Bill Clinton announced a 32-member presidential commission today that will spend the next year studying the quality of the nation's health care industry. He also charged the commission with developing a "consumer bill of rights" designed to protect Americans.
At a White House ceremony, the president released details of his new "Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry." Last September, during the presidential campaign, Clinton promised to name such a panel.
The commission will look at all aspects of the rapidly changing health care industry, including managed care, traditional fee for service care and the new hybrids, such as "physician supported networks" (PSNs).
Clinton said the changes are so rapid that many people are concerned about the quality of care they receive.
"In this time of transition, many Americans worry that lower cost means lower quality and less attention to their rights," the president said.
"On balance, however, managed health care plans -- HMOs [health maintenance organizations], PPOs [preferred provider organizations] and others -- give patients give good care and greater choice, at lower cost.
"Still we must make sure that these changes do not keep health professionals from offering the best and the most medically appropriate services to their patients," Clinton said. "Managed care, managed well, can be the best deal for our families. Whether they have traditional health care or managed care, none of our people should ever have inferior care."
The panel, which has a March 30, 1998 deadline for making its final recommendations, will be co-chaired by Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala and the secretary of labor. Alexis Herman has been nominated but not yet confirmed for that post. The acting labor secretary, Cynthia Metzler, will fill in for Herman until then.
The new commissioners include health care experts in several different fields, including Thomas Reardon, vice chairman of the American Medical Association; former Iowa governor Robert Ray, an expert on rural health care; and Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, director of the Institute of Aging at the University of Pennsylvia.
Clinton's aides say he is not inclined to try to revive his broad health care reform package which failed in 1994. Instead he is focusing on more modest, incremental steps and the commission represents another such initiative.
On Tuesday, the president announced steps to fight Medicare and Medicaid fraud and abuse, and Thursday he will announce steps to fight breast cancer, including making mammograms more easily available.