Industry Group Pans Breaux-Frist Patients’ Rights Bill

The Health Benefits Coalition, which represents employer and health insurance groups, has "given a preliminary thumbs-down" to the "emerging" patients' rights bill sponsored by Sens. John Breaux (D-La.), Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), James Jeffords (R-Vt.) and other centrist senators, CongressDaily/A.M. reports. Based on "initial reports" about the legislation, the coalition, which has "opposed virtually every patients' rights bill introduced," said that the Breaux-Frist bill, "while well-intentioned, unfortunately contains many of the same flaws as earlier versions of a patients' bill of rights." The coalition said in a statement that the legislation "still opens up the health care system to new lawsuits that will drive up costs for all Americans" (CongressDaily/A.M., 3/15). Under the bill, called the "Bipartisan Patients' Bill of Rights of 2001," patients would have guaranteed access to specialists, emergency care and hospital stays. The legislation also would allow patients to sue their health plans in federal court, but would require them to first exhaust an independent external review process, unless the case proves "futile." In addition, the bill would allow unlimited economic damages and place a $500,000 cap on non-economic damages (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 3/13). Despite the cap, the coalition said that the bill "still creates fertile grounds for trial lawyers to sue for full economic damages in federal court and to pursue claims in state courts, where caps are often nonexistent." The group also "complained" that "like all the bills before it," the Breaux-Frist legislation would "vastly expand the federal government's role in health care by imposing numerous regulations and mandates that make it even more difficult, confusing and costly for employers to provide coverage and for patients to access it" (CongressDaily/A.M., 3/15).