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April 25, 2024
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While more than a few health maintenance organizations (HMO) continue to experience some dicey gyrations, the powers that be in Washington, DC are still ruminating over how to craft a proper patients’ bill of rights that rings honest and true. And President Bush has just hopped in on the topic, again.

On the latest news front, HMOs in such disparate bailiwicks as Watts and Stanford are scurrying about in the name of stability.

The state Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) reports it has reached an agreement with Watts Health Foundation to let the HMO drop its non-managed-care setup.

The foundation’s chief executive, Clyde Oden, said his group, with 100,000 members in LA, Orange and San Bernardino counties, lost $9 million in 2000 and consequently came up short of DHMC’s net worth requirement. Oden said the foundation is in the process of reining in costs.

At Stanford, it was announced that the private university, one of the most richly endowed in the nation, is dropping its HMO altogether, again with cost-cutting efforts the main bugaboo. The move affects about 250 students plus 400 dependents, who were advised to get a different plan. The HMO plan presently in place has jumped from $353 to $527 a month for a family of three.

Meanwhile, AP reported that Bush planned meetings this afternnon "to make his case," the wire service quoted White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

The inference has been made that Washington may not see a vote on the patients’ rights bill until the fall, partially contingent on Bush’s stratagems.