Protect the patient!
    Health insurance reform has become a perennial issue, but Marge believes the time for action is now! In an effort to move reform ahead, she has co-sponsored the Managed Care Reform Act of 1999. This is a comprehensive bill intended to put health care decisions back in the hands of doctors and patients - and take those decisions away from the managed care bureaucrats practicing bottom-line medicine and rationing health care.

    The bill would protect consumers without denying managed care's potential for legitimate cost control. The measure addresses a wide variety of issues including emergency room bills; choice of doctors; appeals processes for both doctors and patients; gag rules that keep doctors from discussing treatment options with patients and legal liability for medical actions based on an insurance company's refusal to pay for care.

    The bottom line is that we must not allow excesses in the name of "managed care" destroy the world-class health care system we have here in the United States. Americans have the best health care in the world - and we must keep it that way.

Stop the discrimination!
    As a society, we are still struggling to acknowledge that mental illness is a real sickness in need of medical care. It is a sad reality that health insurance plans continue to discriminate against people suffering mental illness.

    Mental illness is not a character flaw, but a tangible, treatable health problem as real as hypertension, cancer or heart disease. Yet millions of hardworking men and women still find their health plans place strict limits on coverage for mental illness.

    Marge has introduced the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Parity Act of 1999. This comprehensive parity legislation prohibits insurance companies from setting limits for mental health coverage that are not imposed on medical-surgical coverage, and closes the loopholes in the parity bill signed into law in 1996. That bill addressed only overall spending limits. The new legislation covers limits on the frequency of treatments, number of visits, out-of-pocket contributions, and other unfair limits or requirements an insurer might impose. It also adds treatment for substance abuse, which mental health professionals agree is critical to a mental health issue that can be treated.

    The legislation is endorsed by the Coalition for Fairness in Mental Illness Coverage, which includes the nation's premier mental health organizations. A similar bill has been introduced in the Senate and both have strong bi-partisan support.