Clinton, Gingrich Seek Bipartisan Patients’ Rights Bill

Faced with growing voter concern about health care, both President Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Thursday called for a bipartisan approach toward empowering consumers with a patients’ “bill of rights.”

“I don’t believe this is a partisan issue anyplace but in Washington, D.C.,” Clinton said during a rally on Capitol Hill with congressional Democrats and two maverick House Republicans.

In a rousing speech, Clinton exhibited all the fervor and passion of the 1993-94 campaign that he and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton waged for universal health insurance, reminding listeners that for him the issue is personal as well as political since he is the son of a nurse.

For his part, Georgia Republican Gingrich spoke at a separate rally in front of the emergency room at George Washington University Hospital, using the setting to underscore that Congress really is listening to patients’ concerns.

“I want to echo the president--this should be a bipartisan bill,” said Gingrich, who released details of the House GOP’s version of a patient bill of rights. “We’re really building momentum toward a more patient-oriented system. The real test should be, can we get together on a bill.”

But the window of opportunity for reaching a compromise is brief. There are deep philosophical differences on the issue and only a few weeks before Congress adjourns. Making the situation harder still is that a true compromise would require both parties to turn their backs on some of the special interest groups on whom they rely heavily for campaign contributions--no small matter in an election year.

The Republicans are indebted to the insurance industry, and Democrats rely on contributions from trial lawyers. Millions of dollars are at stake for both groups.

The core difference between the GOP and Democratic approaches is whether patients who are injured or die as a result of decisions by their health plans would have a right to recover substantial damages in court.

Under current law the vast majority of Americans are precluded from recovering damages beyond the cost of the services that were denied. Thus, if a woman was denied a mammogram by her health plan and subsequently developed breast cancer, the most she could recover would be the cost of the mammogram.

The Democrats’ bill would change that, making health plans liable for medical decisions--a change in law that insurers and managed-care plans say could cost them hundreds of millions of dollars. It would also benefit trial lawyers.

“You can write all the guarantees you want into the law here in Washington, and, if nobody can enforce them, the delay in the system will still cause people to die,” Clinton said. “We have to do something about this.”

The Congressional Budget Office issued projections Thursday showing that a patients’ “bill of rights” would increase the cost of health insurance premiums by 4%. Democrats quickly touted the report as proof of their contention that patient protections are affordable. Republicans likewise seized on the number to argue that even a 1% increase could force hundreds of thousands of consumers to drop their insurance.

Despite Clinton’s call for a bipartisan solution, the noon rally in a Senate office building was attended only by Democratic members of Congress and the two Republican renegades--Reps. Greg Ganske of Iowa and Michael P. Forbes of New York.

Ganske, a reconstructive surgeon and longtime champion of a patients’ “bill of rights,” has just resigned as a member of the bipartisan commission studying Medicare. In a statement, he attributed his departure to “dissension” among fellow Republicans because he advocates regulation of HMOs.

Gingrich made a point of avoiding any public criticism of Ganske at his press conference, describing the differing positions on liability as “an honest intellectual difference.”

And, he offered up the GOP’s answer to making health plans accountable to patients, one also included in the Democratic approach: a right to an independent review of a health plan’s decision to reject coverage by a board of physicians.

“This guarantees immediate review by an external medical panel,” said Gingrich. “That’s a very dramatic step. . . . It’s much faster than going to court.”