First, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee rejected expanded liability during its mark-up of the so-called "Patients’ Bill of Rights" in March. Then the full Senate stripped expanded liability from the "Patients’ Bill of Rights" during floor debate on July 15.

Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia have all rejected expanded liability.

"External review we can live with. We cannot live with monetary damage awards that may benefit an individual or his heirs, but bankrupt a [health care] plan and wipe out the health care coverage of the thousands of workers, retirees and family members who depend on, and finance, the plan." (James S. Ray before the House Employee-Employer Relations Subcommittee on behalf of the National Coordinating Committee on Multi-Employer Plans, which coordinates the health plans of millions of union workers, May 6, 1999)

"At its final meeting today, the 34-member panel side-stepped the politically explosive question of whether to authorize compensation or create new legal remedies for patients." (New York Times, 3/13/98, on Clinton’s Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry)

"Likewise, the Democratic bill would make it easier for aggrieved patients to sue managed care companies that denied either care or reimbursement. Our preference would be to try a system of external appeals before subjecting an even greater share of medical practice to the vagaries of litigation." (The Washington Post, 7/12/99)