Clinton Begins Last Push for Patients’ Bill of Rights

President Clinton declared Thursday that passage of the patients’ bill of rights is his priority for the final days of the 106th Congress and initiated an intense lobbying drive to get the handful of votes still needed to save the bill.

“It’s time to listen to the doctors, the nurses, the patients,” he said, standing in front of a phalanx of white-clad physicians on the White House lawn and an ambulance that will be used in rallies in a dozen states.

Clinton is striving to bring new enthusiasm to the campaign for the bill, which is being fought by insurance companies, health maintenance organizations and corporations strongly opposed to a provision that would allow injured patients to sue their health plans.

A pitched lobbying campaign targeting senators who are up for reelection is underway both on Capitol Hill and in their home states, with business groups pressuring lawmakers to oppose the legislation and doctors arguing that they should get behind the bill.

“Now, there is no question that this has been debated forever,” the president said, referring to the measure approved by the House last October. “We do not need any more time for debate.”

The main provisions would:

* Guarantee that patients could use any hospital during an emergency and be sure of coverage by their health plans.

* Guarantee access to medical specialists, including, in some cases, coverage to pay for doctors who are not members of the health plan networks.

* Allow patients being treated by a doctor for serious chronic ailments, or life-threatening conditions such as cancer, to continue treatment even if the doctor leaves the health plan.

* Permit patients to sue their health plans for damages if they believe they were injured by a medical treatment or failure to provide treatment.

In addition to the insurance industry and health plans, business groups are determined to defeat the bill because they fear workers would sue their employers as well as their health plans.

The “bill’s reliance on predatory lawsuits and trial lawyers continues to threaten the prospects for real patient protection,” said Karen Ignagni, president of the American Assn. of Health Plans, which represents HMOs.

The legislation “would be likely to lead to higher premiums and more uninsured Americans, without improving the quality of health care,” she said.

The so-called patient protections would hurt, not help, consumers, said Chip Kahn, president of the Health Insurance Assn. of America. Opponents of the bill argue that putting health plans at risk of lawsuits would increase the cost of health care and that in turn would result in some employers and workers deciding to drop health insurance coverage altogether.

Lobbying by advocates of the bill is focused entirely on Senate Republicans. The Senate last year passed a much more restrictive bill than the one backed by the White House and approved by a bipartisan majority in the House. The House measure would cover all 165 million Americans with private health insurance, while the Senate version, depending on its provisions, would apply to a much smaller number.

Democrats have been jockeying for a way to force a vote in the Senate on the version approved in the House before the current congressional session ends.

The Democrats are confident that they have picked up one more vote of support--enough to prevail on a majority vote--as a result of the appointment of Democratic Sen. Zel Miller of Georgia, who replaced the late Sen. Paul Coverdell, a Republican. Democrats believe that the bill would get 50 votes and that Vice President Al Gore could cast the tie-breaking vote.

Republican leaders were infuriated by the White House event Thursday and the rising pressure from supporters of the bill.

Republicans have pledged privately that Gore will never be given the chance to break a tie vote. In a closed-door meeting at the White House earlier this week, Senate leaders signaled that they could use procedural rules to force the Democrats to muster 60 votes for the legislation, congressional and administration aides said. That almost certainly sets the bar too high to win passage, supporters said.

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Times staff writer Janet Hook contributed to this story.