Clinton Pushes Patients' Bill Of Rights
He says GOP proposal covers too few people
WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, July 16) -- At a Capitol Hill pep rally, Democrats asserted Thursday their patients' bill of rights legislation protects more people and includes stronger enforcement provisions than Republican alternatives.
President Bill Clinton joined House and Senate Democrats, and Republican Rep. Greg Ganske of Iowa, to challenge Congress to pass comprehensive national legislation before the year ends.
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle said Democrats are willing to reach out to Republicans, but said GOP proposals don't assure access to specialists, don't guarantee that cancer patients can participate in clinical trials and don't protect doctors against retaliation if they run afoul of cost-cutting measures by health maintenance organizations (HMOs). They also exclude an estimated 100 million Americans, Daschle said.
Many of the GOP guarantees would apply only to about 48 million
people whose health insurance is federally regulated because their
employers, mainly large corporations, directly assume the financial
risk for their medical needs.
"It's what's missing that matters," Daschle said of the Republican proposals unveiled this week. "We will work to pass a full measure, not a half-hearted attempt."
Clinton said the goal is not to abolish managed health care, but
restore it to its proper place and make quality care the first priority.
"I don't believe this is a partisan issue any place but Washington, D.C.," Clinton said.
Clinton, who listened to HMO horror stories at an American Medical Association-sponsored roundtable on Wednesday, said what he heard were not isolated anecdotes, but "representative examples of systematic abuse."
Clinton said the nation can't depend on state legislatures, but needs comprehensive national legislation. And he said the GOP legislation "covers too few people."
Clinton suggested one of the major sticking points, as Congress begins to shape the legislation, is whether to give patients the right to sue to enforce their rights.
"You can write all the guarantees you want into the law here in
Washington and if nobody can enforce them, the delay in the system
will still cause people to die," Clinton declared.
Some Republicans, however, say more lawsuits will mean higher health care costs. "You don't want to spend a lot of money resolving patient disputes," said Rep. Jim Talent (R-Mo.), who is at work on GOP legislation. "You want it to go to patient care."
In general, Democrats say their legislation would provide these protections:
- Access to health care specialists to ensure patients receive appropriate care.
- Access to emergency services when and where the need arises.
- Access to easily understood information to help patients make informed decisions about treatment.
- Grievance and appeals processes for patients and their families to resolve differences with their health plans and health care providers.
These are the two main Democratic bills:
- S.1890, by Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), introduced March 1998.
A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 to protect consumers in
managed care plans and other health coverage.
- H.R.3605, by Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), introduced March 1998.
A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, and the Internal Revenue
Code of 1986 to protect consumers in managed care plans and other health coverage. [Visit THOMAS -- Congress' Web site for full text of the bills.]
This week, however, Republicans in both the Senate and House announced plans for their own legislative proposals, setting the stage for a debate on how far the legislation should go.
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