Insurance Measure on AIDS Tests Fails in Senate

The Senate, in a surprise vote, failed to pass a bill Thursday night that would have allowed insurers to deny life insurance coverage to individuals who test positive on an AIDS antibody test.

The measure, by Sen. John Doolittle (R-Rocklin), lost on a 17-13 vote, primarily because the action came late in the evening after a number of Republican and moderate Democratic supporters had left the Capitol.

The bill, which needed 21 votes for passage, may not be reconsidered this year because of Thursday’s deadline for each house to pass its own measures.

As the deadline approached, however, the Senate passed two other bills that would expand the circumstances under which acquired immune deficiency syndrome tests could be ordered.

The bills, both of which also were authored by Doolittle, would require testing of all newly convicted prison inmates and require obstetricians to test their pregnant patients, unless the women specifically asked that the tests not be done.

The bills were sent to the Assembly on votes of 31 to 1 and 23 to 4, respectively.

Failure of the AIDS insurance testing bill was the result of a clever parliamentary maneuver by Sen. President Pro Tem David Roberti (D-Los Angeles).

The bill, as it came to the Senate floor, would have had a far more sweeping effect than the measure that ultimately lost. In its original form, insurers would have been allowed to use AIDS tests to deny coverage not only for life insurance but for health and disability policies as well.

Roberti, an opponent of wide-ranging AIDS testing, asked Doolittle to delay a vote Thursday afternoon so that a compromise could be worked out. At the time, it appeared that the measure had the votes for passage, but Doolittle cheerfully agreed to the delay.

In the meantime, Roberti leniently enforced his policy of prohibiting senators from leaving the chamber and going home before the day’s business was completed. By the time the bill finally came back for a vote--with all but the life insurance provisions stripped from it--many of its supporters had left the Senate.

When the vote was taken on the “compromise,” Roberti opposed it too.

Doolittle, who is a Senate champion of the anti-abortion forces, also found himself in an awkward position on the AIDS prenatal testing bill when he was asked by Sen. John Garamendi (D-Walnut Grove) and Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) if his legislation would actually encourage abortions by women who tested positive.

Doolittle at first seemed to fumble for an answer but then countered that his bill was meant to be a “pro-life” measure aimed at saving the lives of the unborn.