Senate Passes Patients' Rights Bill
W A S H I N G T O N, June 29 -- The Senate voted tonight to approve a sweeping patients' bill of rights that would create new legal protections for people enrolled in managed care plans, including the right to sue their HMOs and insurance companies.
"The Senate has taken a giant step forward in order to protect doctors and patients that for far too long have been exploited by the managed-care industry," Sen. Edward, Kennedy, D-Mass., said moments after the so-called Bipartisan Patient Protection Act was passed on a 59-36 vote.
The legislation, co-sponsored by Kennedy and Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and John Edwards, D-N.C., would guarantee some 190 million Americans expanded access to medical specialists, emergency room care and prescription drugs not on a health plan's approved list. It would also give patients the right to appeal a decision to deny treatment to an independent review board.
"I think you are going to see a significant change of attitude and performance by health plans," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a nonprofit health-care consumers' advocacy group.
Opponents of the measure say permitting patients to sue their health maintenance organizations or insurance companies in state court and allowing them to recover virtually unlimited damages would force health plans to raise their rates, which could in turn swell the ranks of the uninsured.
"It drives up the costs of physician, hospital and health plan premiums," said Karen Ignani, president of the American Association of Health Plans. "That all gets played into the cost that consumers pay, ultimately."
President Bush has promised to veto the legislation.
Republican Challenges Rejected
Today's vote capped two weeks of contentious debate and legislative maneuvering on the Senate floor. The bill was Senate Democrats' top priority and its passage is a major political victory for Democratic leaders, who assumed control of the narrowly divided chamber earlier this month, after Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., bolted the GOP, depriving Republicans of their majority.
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