HMOs and Trial Lawyers Slug It Out By John Millrany - June 12, 2001Trial lawyers and health maintenance organizations (HMO) are squaring off in a sure-to-be-nasty fight to win their point over patients’ rights and the ability to sue over health care decisions.
HMOs have launched a major advertising campaign to make their case that a patients’ rights bill under consideration in Congress would be harmful to the economy. The bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina along with Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, has been criticized by White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., who said President Bush will veto the bill if it’s not toned down.
Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Card charged, "This is a trial lawyers’ bill. It’s not a patients’ bill of rights…and it should be changed."
According to Sharon Theimer of the Associated Press, insurers and businesses are spending millions of dollars on a new campaign to oppose the bill, which has become a Senate priority since Democrats took control of the Upper House last week. The campaign includes ads warning consumers that the legislation is "bad for the economy…bad for working people."
Telephone calls offering a similar message will target business owners, Theimer said. E-mails sent to doctors nationwide will link to video of mock newscasts, produced by the HMO industry, warning that patients’ rights legislation will empower trial lawyers to pursue frivolous lawsuits.
"We will spend whatever it takes," said Mark Merritt, chef strategist for the American Association of Health Plans.
Appearing on CBS’ "Face the Nation," Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD), the Senate majority leader, appealed for compromise, saying that the bill the Senate plans to take up this month resembles a similar patients’ rights bill in Texas, Bush’s home state.
"What we need are ways in which to find the common ground we are looking for," he said. "We want to do something that should have been done a long time ago—make sure that people have the right to choose their own doctor; make sure that they have the ability for continuity of care; make sure the insurance companies are kept to insurance and not to medicine."
Meanwhile in California, a medical review board that was set up at the first of the year has ruled in favor of HMOs in 65% of disputes between insurers and patients. Since Jan. 1, the state Department of Managed Health Care, which regulates HMOs, has ordered the review by disinterested outside doctors of 195 cases. The reviewers found for the HMOs in 110 cases, with 58 in favor of patients and the remainder pending.
Daniel Zingales, director of the managed care agency, said that "California’s laws are among the strongest in the nation" with regard to protecting rights of patients. |