Speaker, Under Gun, to Allow ‘Patients’ Rights’ Vote

Confronted with a budding rebellion in his own party, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) agreed Friday to allow a vote on the divisive issue of “patients’ rights” early next month, freeing the House to move beyond the Senate in clamping down on the nation’s HMOs.

Hastert decided to permit the vote after trying fruitlessly for weeks to quell a drive by House Democrats and a faction of GOP dissidents to enact broad new protections for Americans in managed-care plans, including greater freedom for patients to sue HMOs for malpractice.

Unable to broker a compromise, the speaker announced he would allow the House to consider at least two bills that would regulate managed-care plans far more stringently than he and other Republican leaders want, essentially conceding that he can not dictate the will of the chamber.

The proposals would make it easier for patients in health maintenance organizations to visit medical specialists, to get bills for emergency room visits paid, to find out about their HMOs’ rules and to protest if they don’t receive the medical services they want.

Aides to Hastert said Friday that he had not abandoned hope of finding common ground with GOP dissidents. But other members said that the odds remain long, raising the prospect that patients’ rights will join campaign finance as a major issue on which the House leadership ultimately is forced to acquiesce to legislation it opposes.

Hastert scheduled debate for the week of Oct. 4.

Shortly after becoming speaker, Hastert promised to revive the issue this year. He promised to bring the issue to a vote before the August recess, then by the end of this month. He delayed each time because he could not corral his party’s rebels.