FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts:
Todd Irons
(202) 973-2927
Suzy DeFrancis
(202) 973-3610

Statement by the Health Benefits Coalition on
Vice President Gore’s Call for a "Real"
Patients’ Bill of Rights

Washington, DC, July 11, 2000 — Health care reform should not mean higher costs and more uninsured. Al Gore’s "real" patients’ bill of rights will cost 1.2 million Americans their health insurance*, and by putting employers at risk of lawsuits and possible bankruptcy** it punishes working men and women while rewarding Gore’s key campaign contributors – the trial lawyers. They ought to call it a lawyers’ right to bill, not a patients’ bill of rights.

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The Health Benefits Coalition is a broad-based organization representing three million employers providing health care coverage to more than 100 million employees and families. The coalition believes affordable, quality health care is best achieved through broader coverage, choice and competition in the marketplace – not government mandates.

 

* Sources: Congressional Budget Office and Lewin Group. A CBO analysis of the Dingell-Norwood bill (H.R. 2990) found the bill would increase health care premiums 4.1 percent. According to a study by the Lewin Group, every 1 percent increase in health care costs results in 300,000 uninsured. Therefore, Dingell-Norwood would result in 1.2 million additional uninsured.

** Source: Legal analyses of the Dingell-Norwood bill by Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis, LLP, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP, and William Schiffbauer, Esq., confirm the legislation would subject employers who sponsor health benefits for their employees to expanded health care liability.