Copyright 2000 Journal Sentinel Inc.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
July 1, 2000 Saturday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: NEWS;
Pg. 03A
LENGTH: 613 words
HEADLINE: Doctors turn to Senate for antitrust exemption;
House victory advances plan aimed at bargaining with insurance companies
BYLINE: ROBERT PEAR New York Times
BODY:
Washington -- Elated by a big victory in the House, doctors opened a campaign
Friday to persuade the Senate to give them an exemption from antitrust laws so
they could bargain collectively with insurance companies over fees and other
issues.
But Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said he would stand in their
way.
The House passed a bill to
exempt doctors from major provisions of the
antitrust laws early Friday. The final vote, at 2 a.m., was 276-136, with a two-thirds
majority heeding the doctors' pleas for relief. Wisconsin's lawmakers voted in
favor, except Republican F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Menomonee Falls and
Democrats Tammy Baldwin of Madison and Tom Barrett of Milwaukee, who voted
against.
The chief sponsor of the bill, Rep. Tom Campbell (R-Calif.) and his allies at
the American Medical Association said the lopsided vote in the House would give
them momentum in the Senate.
Lott's position reduces the chances that the bill will get through the Senate
this year. No senator has introduced such legislation, though Campbell and the
AMA are trying to find a senator, preferably a Republican, to take up the cause.
Senate Republican leaders are in no hurry to help the association. Indeed, the
Republican leaders are upset with the group because doctors have worked closely
with President Clinton and with Democrats in Congress to pass a Democratic bill
defining patients' rights in a much more expansive way than Republicans want.
The Campbell bill would exempt health care professionals from provisions of the
antitrust laws when they negotiate with health maintenance organizations and
insurers over
fees and contract terms.
In the last 20 years, doctors have often been accused of violating the seminal
antitrust law, the Sherman Act of 1890, which prohibits contracts, combinations
and conspiracies in restraint of trade. The law applies to doctors as it
applies to vitamin manufacturers and road construction companies.
In a typical case, the Federal Trade Commission asserted that patients and
employers had been forced to bear more than $1 million in increased costs because of a price-fixing conspiracy by surgeons
in Austin, Texas, in 1998 and 1999.
Doctors who are employees -- at hospitals, for example -- can join labor unions
and collectively negotiate with their employers under existing law. The House
bill would grant similar immunity from the antitrust laws to independent
doctors.
Doctors said they needed more leverage to negotiate on working conditions, the
quality of
care, the number of patients they must see in a day and similar issues.
"This bill helps doctors help their patients -- nothing more, nothing less," Campbell said Friday.
"Medical professionals should be allowed to provide care for their patients as
they think best, and today Congress empowered them to do so.
"
The bill is opposed by groups representing nurses, nurse practitioners and
midwives, who fear that doctors will demand that health plans restrict the role
of such non-physicians.
Antitrust officials at the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department
also opposed the Campbell bill, saying it would enable doctors to raise their
fees. As a result, the officials said, employers and individual purchasers of
health insurance would have to pay higher premiums, and spending for Medicare
and Medicaid would increase.
The Campbell bill does not give doctors any new right to strike, or to withhold
services from
patients. But FTC Chairman Robert Pitofsky said it would give doctors
"coercive power" because they could back their demands for higher fees by collectively refusing
to deal with certain health plans.
LOAD-DATE: July 1, 2000
