Bush threatens to veto patients’ bill of rights

By Anjetta Mcqueen

Associated Press

WASHINGTON – President Bush issued a veto threat today against a Democratic-backed patients’ bill of rights, saying it was riddled with serious flaws that would jeopardize the ability of Americans to afford health insurance.

The threat was issued in writing by the Office of Management and Budget, and within minutes, read aloud on the Senate floor by Sen. Tim Hutchinson, R-Ark.

“The president will veto the bill unless significant changes are made to address his major concerns,” the administration said.

Bush’s aides had long signaled opposition to the measure, and Bush himself had spoken often about his desire to sign legislation that was markedly different from the bill that Democrats pushed to the floor as the first order of business after gaining a Senate majority.

At the same time, Republicans had expressed concern in recent days that the White House would issue a formal position paper that stopped short of a veto threat – thereby undercutting their efforts in the House and Senate to derail passage of the measure as drafted.

Bush acted as the Senate moved through its third day of debate on the measure, and Hutchinson advanced an amendment to allow the self-employed to deduct their health insurance costs fully starting Jan 1, one year ahead of the schedule fixed in current law.

The amendment underscored the political stakes involved in the debate. Hutchinson faces a difficult re-election campaign next year, and his amendment addressed a politically popular issue

“The president will veto the bill unless significant changes are made to address his major concerns,” the administration said.

“While the president strongly supports a comprehensive and enforceable patients’ bill of rights and has been working with members of both parties to enact legislation this year, he believes (the measure pending in the Senate) would encourage costly and unnecessary litigation that would seriously jeopardize the ability of many Americans to afford health care coverage.”

Much of the dispute surrounding the legislation stems from the issue of when and where patients may sue for denial of care, and how much in damages they should be permitted to seek.

There is less disagreement among lawmakers about the type of protections to provide patients.

The Senate’s Democratic majority wants to pass far-reaching rules designed to help patients sue HMOs when delays in or denial of care lead to disastrous or fatal results. In general, the bill also would grant patients access to emergency care, the right to select a pediatrician as a child’s primary care physician, access to specialists and other rights.

The issue of lawsuits has kept the five-year debate politically charged. The debate is over when and in what court patients may file lawsuits for denial of care and how much in damages they should be entitled to seek.

Republicans, aligned politically with managed-care companies and businesses, generally favor a more limited right to sue. House Republicans finished the bulk of an alternative plan, with the hopes of drawing party moderates away from a similar version destined for that chamber.

Senate GOP leaders could pepper the Democrats’ bill with proposed changes to key provisions to the bill: the number of people covered, allowable treatments, which courts could hear lawsuits and the pre-lawsuit appeal process.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has threatened to cancel a July Fourth break scheduled to begin at the end of next week unless the measure comes to a final vote by then.

“I don’t think we’ll win every amendment,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a co-sponsor of the Democratic plan that most Republicans are resisting. “But it will be difficult to defend to Americans that (the Republicans) are blocking a piece of legislation that simply deserves to be decided upon.”

Republican rivals, however, got a boost from Bush’s vocal opposition to the Democrats’ bill in a speech Wednesday.

House GOP leaders’ plan would let a patient sue an HMO for denial of care if the patient won an appeal and the insurance company refused to abide by the ruling.

Patients would be permitted to bring suit in state courts and seek punitive damages, which are unlimited in some states. The bill backed by most Senate Republicans offers no new right to sue in state court, where juries are presumed more sympathetic to plaintiffs.