Health - Patients' Bill of Rights

Patients´ Bill of Rights

Press Accounts

Congressional Democrats Unveil Patients' Rights Bill
April 1, 1998

New York Times

By Robert Pear

WASHINGTON -- With support from consumer groups, labor unions and the American Medical Association, Democratic leaders of Congress introduced legislation Tuesday that they said would protect patients by regulating the practices of health insurance companies and health maintenance organizations.

The bill, opposed by Republican leaders of the House and the Senate, would define a long list of patients' rights, guaranteeing a choice of doctors, access to medical specialists and the right to participate in trials of experimental drugs.

Under the bill, HMOs would have to establish grievance procedures allowing patients to appeal the denial of care to independent bodies certified by federal or state officials. Each state would have to establish an ombudsman program to help consumers understand their insurance options and to enforce patients' rights.

With little hope of getting their bill to the floor of the House or the Senate, Democrats plan to offer it as an amendment to one or more bills on the Senate floor, forcing Republicans to vote on it again and again.

While the measure is unlikely to become law in its current form, it will nudge the debate toward more regulation, putting pressure on Congress to pass some type of patient protection bill this year.

House Democratic Minority Leader Dick Gephardt said the Democrats' bill responded to "a crisis of confidence" in American health care.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., a co-author of the bill, said: "Profits should not take priority over patients. The list of people victimized by insurance companies grows every day."

But Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., the assistant majority leader, said he was distressed to see "members of Congress putting on lab coats and prescribing by law treatment for all of America."

The Democrats' bill would make it easier for patients to sue HMOs and employer-sponsored health plans for personal injury or wrongful death. Patients have had great difficulty recovering damages in such lawsuits because of a 1974 federal law that precludes most such claims.

The bill would not create a new right to sue under federal law, but it would allow patients to sue and recover damages under state law. Injured patients could not sue their employers unless the employers themselves had made the improper decisions to deny benefits.

The Democratic bill was introduced by Senate Democratic Minority Leader Tom Daschle and Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, who has been fighting for three decades to guarantee health insurance for all Americans.

Daschle and Gephardt made clear that they saw the effort to regulate managed care as a winning political issue for Democrats in this year's Congressional elections.

Labor Secretary Alexis Herman hailed the Democratic bill, saying it "includes every protection recommended by a presidential advisory commission."

The commission, while agreeing on what rights should be protected, was deadlocked on the question of how to enforce those rights and could not agree whether new federal laws were necessary, or whether voluntary efforts might suffice.

The AFL-CIO, the AMA and Consumers Union praised the Democratic bill. But a broad coalition of HMOs, insurance companies and employers of all sizes denounced the legislation, saying it would increase costs and force millions of Americans to lose their insurance without improving the quality of care.

Karen Ignagni, president of the American Association of Health Plans, which represents HMOs, said her members would lobby against the Democrats' bill. Asked to assess the chances for passage of such legislation, she said: "It's hard to know what will be enacted, or whether anything will be enacted, this year."