Bush's Patient's Rights Work
George
W. Bush took credit for a patients' bill of rights in Texas during
his campaign. What he didn't say was that it passed on it's second
time through the Legislature, with a cap of $750,000, and without
his signature, as he vetoed it the first time. He also pledged on
the campaign trail to bring Democrats and Republicans together on
behalf of a patients' bill of rights. But his failure now to back
the sensible bipartisan bill being sponsored by John McCain, John
Edwards and others in Congress calls into question the sincerity of
his pledge. The key political issue here is the Republican co-sponsor,
John McCain, the man Bush beat for the Republican presidential nomination
just over a year ago. The two men have been engaged in a running battle
on several fronts, including campaign finance reform, gun control,
tax cuts, and now health care. McCain has made it clear he didn't
like the way the Republican majority in the House rushed through a
big chunk of the president's tax cut proposals without significant
debate and without a formal budget. This is a senator who spent years
as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. In more recent years, he has been
battling melanoma - a deadly form of skin cancer. He certainly has
no fear of battling the president - even a president of his own party
- when he deems it right.
The legislation, which sponsors say is supported by solid majorities in both chambers, would make it easier for Americans to resolve disputes with their health maintenance organizations and other insurance providers and to seek redress when they have been wrongly denied needed treatment. It is an issue that could affect almost every American. The House passed a similar bill in the last session, but the effort died in the Senate, strongly opposed by the insurance industry.
The bill, called the Patient Protection Act, covers the 160 million Americans who have private health insurance and establishes guidelines for HMOs and other insurance providers to process requests for coverage. It would grant the insured a right to receive emergency care, visit pediatricians, ob-gyns and other specialists and obtain an outside review by medical experts of any benefit denials.
Patients dissatisfied with the outcome of this review could sue their health insurance providers in state court in cases that entail a "medically reviewable" claim. These suits would be subject to any applicable damage caps under state law. Contractual claims against an HMO would have to be brought in federal court and face a $5 million cap. This is a sensible jurisdictional division, reflecting the fact that states have traditionally entertained medical malpractice suits.
Destruction of Health Care in America
George
Bush has picked Thomas Scully, president of the powerful and greedy
for-profit hospital lobby, to run Medicare and Medicaid. Scully will
be the chief salesman for President Bush's proposals to overhaul Medicare,
add prescription drug benefits and increase the role of private health
plans in caring for the elderly. Medicare and Medicaid provide health
care to more than 70 million Americans.
Scully can be expected to turn Medicare over to the HMO's, which get rich by denying needed care - and cannot be sued because Republicans have blocked the Patients' Bill of Rights. He will prevent the government from purchasing prescription drugs in bulk, in order to protect the obscene profits of the drug industry.
Mr. Scully, who makes $675,000 a year as president of the hospital federation, a trade group for 1,700 investor-owned hospitals. He has long ties to the Bush family, having worked on the presidential campaign of Mr. Bush's father in 1980 after graduating from the University of Virginia in 1979. He was an associate director of the White House Office of Management and Budget in the first Bush administration, from 1989 to 1992.