Copyright 1999 The Hartford Courant Company
THE
HARTFORD COURANT
October 6, 1999 Wednesday, STATEWIDE
SECTION: MAIN; Pg. A1
LENGTH: 934 words
HEADLINE:
LIFE OR DEATH SITUATION FOR PATIENT RIGHTS;
DOCTORS IN THE HOUSE SUPPORT
RIGHT TO SUE
BYLINE: JOHN A. MacDONALD Courant Staff
Writer
DATELINE: WASHINGTON --
BODY:
Showdown votes in the House of
Representatives starting today will resolve a critical question for consumers
and insurers: Will Congress keep alive the possibility of legislation allowing
patients to sue their health plans in coverage disputes? Or will lawmakers kill
the proposal for this year and probably until after the 2000 elections?
While House members will be voting on a number of other proposals to
give consumers more clout in dealing with health insurers, none will be more
controversial than the lawsuit issue.
The right to sue, supporters say,
is the key to holding insurers accountable if they deny patients needed care.
President Clinton last weekend cited as an example a 12- year-old cancer patient
who lost his leg because an insurer delayed treatment.
Insurers counter
that opening courtroom doors to such lawsuits will drive up prices, causing more
employers to drop coverage, just as the Census Bureau reports the number of
uninsured Americans rose last year to 44 million.
On the eve of what
promises to be a hectic two-day debate, there was the usual round of closed-door
meetings and arm-twisting, but little else to indicate a storm was about to hit.
Analysts said the most probable outcome is House passage of some right-to-sue
provision, but the lingering question was how strong it will be.
Speaker
Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., attended a $1,000-per-person fund-raising breakfast
Tuesday with insurance lobbyists. Later, Republican leaders said they were
joining the speaker in supporting a narrow right-to-sue provision.
The
House debate, like the one in the Senate in July, is expected to break mostly
along party lines, with one notable exception. Several of the most visible
champions of the right to sue are Republicans -- doctors who have broken ranks
with their leadership. The only physician in the Senate, Bill Frist, R- Tenn.,
opposed expanding insurers' liability.
Tired of restrictions imposed on
doctors by insurers, the American Medical Association is one of the most
outspoken advocates of the right to sue. Insurers and the business community
have allied to oppose the proposal.
"This bill will not result in a
flood of lawsuits . . . as opponents claim," said AMA President Thomas Reardon,
citing an association legal analysis to back up his statement.
Karen
Ignagni, president of the American Association of Health Plans, an HMO trade
group, foresees the opposite result. "You're not lining up behind the working
men and women of this country in voting for this legislation," said Ignagni, who
once represented the AFL-CIO in Capitol Hill battles. The union supports the
right to sue.
The Senate voted against including a liability provision
in its version of what is widely known as the Patients' Bill of
Rights. Prospects are considered to be better in the House because of
the persistence of Republican Rep. Charlie Norwood, a 58-year-old Georgia
dentist who looks and talks like a Southern county sheriff.
Last year,
with Newt Gingrich, R- Ga., in the speaker's seat, Norwood bowed to the
leadership's wishes and voted for patients' rights legislation that omitted the
right to sue. This year, with the less domineering J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., in
filling Gingrich's place, Norwood has formed an alliance with Rep. John D.
Dingell, D-Mich., and brought along about two dozen Republicans who support
including the liability provision.
If Democrats remain united, and
Dingell said they will, and if Norwood can hold his Republican supporters in
line, the House will send the Norwood-Dingell right-to-sue provision to a
conference with the Senate. If the House rejects the lawsuit provision,
Democrats have given every indication they will use it as a 2000 campaign issue.
Trying to persuade lawmakers they will not suffer adverse reactions from
a "no" vote, Ignagni released a poll showing that Social Security, taxes and
education, not health care reform, will be the issues most on voters' minds next
year.
Still, a recent Washington Post- ABC News Poll showed that 65
percent said protecting patients' rights will be "very important" in how they
vote in 2000. And Norwood has repeatedly warned fellow Republicans they will
make a mistake if they do not address the issue before the elections.
The only impartial analysis of the cost of the Norwood-Dingell
legislation -- a key point of contention -- shows it would would boost premiums
4.8 percent per year when all of its provisions are fully phased in. This would
be on top of inflationary increases that, in Connecticut, are expected to range
from 7 percent to 16 percent next year.
In addition to the lawsuit
provision, the Norwood-Dingell measure would provide easier access to emergency
rooms and specialists, require health plans to set up an internal and external
appeals process when care is denied, and allow patients to remain under the care
of a doctor for a specified time even if a health plan drops the physician.
Rival Republican legislation also would allow patient lawsuits, but
under severely limited conditions and only after patients had exhausted their
internal and external appeals rights.
Hastert has sought to shift
attention to several measures to expand access to health care to the uninsured.
These include tax credits to buy insurance, a proposal to allow small employers
to band together to purchase health insurance and an expansion of medical
savings accounts, tax-exempt accounts that can be used for medical expenses.
"The most important group to me is the 44 million Americans who must go
without health insurance," Hastert said.
LOAD-DATE: October 6, 1999
