Patients Rights

In a dramatic shift, House Republican leaders Wednesday proposed legislation guaranteeing the rights of patients in health maintenance organizations and other managed-care plans, offering a sweeping set of initiatives that include many already endorsed by Democrats. Republican leaders acted in response to pressure from their own rank and file, who feared that Democrats were stealing an election issue.

Dr. Eugene D. Robin, 80, a medical researcher and advocate of patients' rights to determine their own medical care. Robin wrote "Matters of Life and Death," widely used by patients trying to determine the benefits and drawbacks of treatment. He also wrote a medical column for the Press-Enterprise of Riverside and the San Francisco Examiner from 1986 to 1990. Robin was born Aug. 23, 1919, in Detroit.

A key Senate ally of President Bush will propose a patients' bill of rights today that would give new protections to patients while setting strict limits on court awards against health plans accused of misconduct. The bill's long-awaited introduction by Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) could trigger a major health care fight on the Senate floor pitting the Bush administration against Sens. John McCain and Edward M.

In a ruling widely awaited in the burgeoning field of biotechnology, the state Supreme Court held Monday that patients must be told if their discarded bodily tissue has commercial potential--but that they have no broad legal right to share in resulting profits. The decision came as a victory for the University of California, medical researchers and industry groups who had warned that granting unprecedented commercial rights to patients could stifle important scientific research and development.

WASHINGTON -- Patients whose health maintenance organizations deny them a medical treatment or drug benefit have a right to a second opinion from outside doctors, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday, upholding the new "independent review" laws in California and 41 other states. The 5-4 decision endorses a middle-ground reform in the continuing fight between consumer advocates and the health insurance industry about who should make medical decisions.

Re: "Ways to Optimize Your Care This Year" (Jan. 8): In late July, my wife of 32 years was diagnosed with a glioblastoma multiforme brain tumor. Since that time, I have been engaged in what are genuinely life-or-death battles with our HMO and the "medical group" that ultimately is responsible for treatment. Even while trying to learn the difficult role of becoming primary caregiver to someone with a debilitating disease, I have had to spend upward of half of some days fighting the HMO system to obtain what should be clearly obvious treatment for my wife.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) will join Senate Democrats today to announce his co-sponsorship of a modified version of legislation known as the "patients' bill of rights." McCain will be joined at the news conference by Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.), who also supports the bill, giving it more Republican backing in the Senate than in the past, when Senate Democrats did not have enough GOP votes to pass the legislation, which won bipartisan support in the House.

The American Medical Assn. on Monday announced its endorsement of a Democrat-led House plan to better protect the rights of patients in managed care plans. The decision by the AMA, made by its board at a meeting over the weekend in Chicago, was praised by President Clinton for sending "a strong message to Congress" that it is time to pass meaningful patient-rights legislation. The legislation, sponsored by Reps. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) and Charlie Norwood (R-Ga.

Results of this year's elections seemed ominous for the health-care industry--the multibillion-dollar phalanx of health maintenance organizations, hospital companies and insurance providers. As the Democrats gained strength for the forthcoming Congress, President Clinton vowed that a "medical bill of rights" would pass and be signed into law next year.

What effect will the patients' bill of rights, moving toward becoming law this fall, have on patients' pocketbooks, medical costs in general and the vast health-care industry? It will raise costs of health insurance and employer health plans--and ultimately force individual employees to directly pay more of the cost of their health insurance and medical care. That's the reality, say economists, physicians, investment analysts, hospital administrators and executives of health-care companies.