New Patients’ Rights Bill, Same ‘Flawed, Old Model’, Arnett Writes in the National Review

Lawmakers, "[l]ike used car salesmen," have "taken the flawed, old model" of patients' rights legislation and "slapped a new sticker on it to try to fool unwitting buyers," Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Arnett argues in a National Review opinion piece. However, Arnett writes, the bill "has always been a clunker." Sponsored by "new hucksters" Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), the new Bipartisan Patient Protection Act of 2001, according to Arnett, "deserves the same fate as its progenitors." She points out that the "new sticker does not disguise the reality that this highly flawed" bill would spur more lawsuits in both federal and state courts, as well as larger damage awards, which would result in higher health insurance premiums and increase the number of uninsured Americans. While "salesmen" for patients' rights legislation have "hawk[ed]" the right of patients to file suit against their HMOs, Arnett contends that individuals already can sue their health plans, arguing that the "real issue is what kind of damages they can recover if an employer-sponsored health plan wrongfully denies them coverage." She adds that the bipartisan patients' rights bill would expose health plans to "massive judgments" if juries decided that insurers had denied patients "medically necessary" treatment, "even though the treatment might have had a very low chance of success to begin with, and even though there is no clear meaning of what the term 'medically necessary' means." In addition, Arnett writes that the bill would only boost the cost of health insurance, prompt some employers to drop coverage and increase the number of uninsured -- "just so a few aggrieved patients may recover jury awards far in excess of their actual economic loss and suffering."

Power, not Rights
According to Arnett, "[i]nstead of trying to encourage more litigation," lawmakers should "equip patients with more power and more choice." She concludes, "There is only one way to give patients effective and meaningful rights -- by giving them greater control over their own insurance policies, affording them the ability to select their own insurer, and granting them the right to change insurers if they are not satisfied. Patients crave more power, not rights" (Arnett, National Review, 2/26).

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