Patients’ Bill of Rights is effective HMO reform

  Simon Perng Please support my political
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Sick and tired of a Clintonian era of flaky promises and PR mind
games, Americans have now exhausted their patience for a
Patients’ Bill of Rights to materialize.

One year ago, President Bill Clinton promised Americans his
support for a Patients’ Bill of Rights, but reneged on his
pledge when he attempted to exploit the issue to aid Prince
Albert’s quest for the presidency.

Clinton held real HMO reform hostage when he refused to bargain
with Congress and get it passed, fully intending all along to
create a dramatic stalemate for Vice President Al Gore to use as an
issue to hammer then Gov. George W. Bush and Republicans at the
polls.

But now, thanks to vigorous cooperative efforts by the Bush
Administration, House leaders and especially Rep. Charlie Norwood,
R-Ga., Americans may very well get a Patients’ Bill of Rights
by the end of the year.

Now real HMO reform only awaits the final stage of the
legislative process before arriving on the President’s desk:
the conference committee.

Should the House version of HMO reform prevail in conference, it
would be a significant advancement for patients’ rights. It
guarantees HMO coverage of emergency care, health care by
specialists and enables patients to sue HMOs even after the
independent review arbiters rule in favor of the HMO. It sets caps
on punitive damages at $1.5 million to check the economic havoc of
run-amok federal lawsuit judgments that limit HMO ability to pay
regular health care claims.

  Illustration by RODERICK ROXAS/Daily Bruin

The Norwood compromise even contains provisions (initially
opposed by the President) to allow patients to sue HMOs in state
courts, which usually set no statutory limits on punitive
damages.

Norwood aided its passage the most by playing the role of
dealmaker, thus sidestepping a skirmish on the House floor.
Norwood, renowned for his bipartisanship and experience on the
issue from proposing similar HMO reforms in 1999, managed to strike
a compromise proposal that would win the President’s support
plus moderate Republicans and some Democrats to pass the House.

Hopefully, the Democrat-controlled Senate will show true
statesmanship by cooperating with the House in the conference
committee and craft a signable Patients’ Bill of Rights that
reflects the priorities of the Norwood compromise.

Even though it seems rather premature for some pundits to
speculate and campaign on an unfinished legislative work in
process, some partisan liberal Democrats are now eager to spin and
criticize President Bush’s and Norwood’s
accomplishments on getting a Patients’ Bill of Rights.

They hastily forget that they had their chance to act on it just
less than a year ago, and now they’re bitter that the other
guys’ are actually succeeding where they had failed.

Nonetheless, I should address the typical liberals’ spins
and distortions that seek to distract public attention from the
merits of the pending HMO reform.

Liberals opt to ignore the substantial advancement for
patients’ rights contained in the House Patients’
Rights bill, focusing instead on only one primary point of common
dispute between Democrats and Republicans: the litigation
reforms.

They speciously complain that this bill limits a patient’s
right of legal recourse against an HMO.

First of all, the House Patients’ Rights bill limits only
two classification of damages: punitive and pain and suffering.
Those that win judgments against HMOs may still receive unlimited
compensatory damages (which seek to correct the wrong) but punitive
and pain and suffering damages must be limited to $1.5 million.

This limitation is based on a principle that punitive damages
should still be in place to punish the HMO, but they should not be
so immense as to verge on disrupting its ability to provide health
care to others. Assessing punitive or pain and suffering damages
can emit strong emotional sentiments from juries and judges such
that they may vary immensely in dollar amount and can verge on the
ludicrously malicious and destructive. This is just plain common
sense.

Second, unlimited compensatory damages means no one will get
short-changed by the legal system ““ the HMO must still pay
any full amount to compensate for its wrong. Therefore, patients
still have plenty of legal recourse against HMOs when
necessary.

Finally, these punitive damage limits apply to federal cases
only. Patients can still opt to sue HMOs in state court and collect
unlimited compensatory and punitive damages.

Democrats claim that the House bill provides a litigation
advantage for the HMO industry, but I don’t see how HMOs are
any more shielded from liability; it’s really only a matter
of counting dollar amounts.

If anyone appears beholden to a special interest, it is the
Democratic Party. Democrats routinely receive millions of dollars
in campaign contributions from trial lawyers. Thus, it
shouldn’t surprise me that they would act on behalf of their
trial lawyer friends and seek to overturn these limits on punitive
damages since they would limit attorney fee income.

Liberal Democrats may claim to support “a real
Patients’ Bill of Rights,” but they instead prefer one
that coddles a destructive and parasitic influence on managed
health care: trial lawyers. These trial lawyers pose an imminent
threat to America’s managed health care by seeking massive
judgment awards, while forcing HMOs to replenish funds to fulfill
claims by either gutting medical services or raising member
rates.