Shadegg/Coburn
Proposal Helps Lawyers, Hurts Consumers
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 25, 1999
CONTACT: Richard Coorsh
(202) 824-1787
e-mail:rcoorsh@hiaa.org
The following statement was released today by Donald Young, M.D., Chief
Operating Officer and Medical Director of the Health Insurance Association
of America (HIAA):
Representatives John Shadegg (R-AZ) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) are drafting
a so-called "patient protection" bill that instead will provide Members of
Congress with political protection at the expense of consumers. Sadly,
despite ample evidence to the contrary, both continue to insist that their
so-called "Health Care Quality and Choice Act" would not raise costs. In
fact, their bill would impose additional government mandates – the cost of
which would be passed on to consumers in the form of higher premiums –
even though both belong to a political party that normally eschews
expanding government.
Make no mistake. Mandates – no matter how well intended – raise the
cost of health insurance. Already, nearly one quarter of the nation’s 43
million uninsured Americans lack coverage because the cost of mandates.
The Shadegg/Coburn proposal, under the guise of quality improvement, would
mandate a process that would allow trial lawyers to sue health plans. This
would add more fuel to the cost inflation fire, and would benefit trial
lawyers without improving the overall quality of care. If Reps. Shadegg
and Coburn truly are interested in improving the quality of care, they
should instead support the efforts of managed care plans to provide "best
practices" information to providers and to eliminate the wide disparity
that exists in the way that different doctors treat the same conditions.
In addition to benefiting the trial lawyers, the Shadegg/Coburn bill
would impose other costly mandates. For example, the bill would mandate
that health plans pay for out-of-network care delivered after a medical
emergency, and would mandate that health plans provide an out-of-network
option to people with certain kinds of HMO coverage. These options may
sound good on paper, but in the real world they cost money at a time when
consumers are eager to see their coverage costs reduced.
The private health insurance industry cannot provide consumers with
lower cost coverage in the face of ever-expanding government mandates and
escalating medical and prescription drug costs. Representatives Shadegg
and Coburn should not attempt to gloss over how their legislation would
raise consumers’ costs, and to remember that cost is the primary reason
why most of the nation’s 43 million uninsured lack coverage.
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