Patients’ Bill of Rights |
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| According to a recent survey, three out of five Americans believe the
trend toward managed care ultimately will harm the quality of health care
they receive. I believe that managed care has its benefits--keeping
the cost of health care affordable for working Americans--but I believe
that the people of south Arkansas deserve quality health care, and that
medical decisions should be made by patients and their doctors. That
is why I—along with many of my colleagues, Democrat and Republican alike—am
cosponsoring a bill, the Ganske-Dingell Patients’ Bill of Rights, to end
the abuses of HMOs and managed health care plans.
In fact in our own family, our automobile insurance allows us to choose which body shop to take our mini van should we ever have a wreck. And yet our HMO health insurance plan tells us who our doctors going to be and something as personal as who will be hold the knife when and if we ever need surgery. This Patients’ Bill of Rights guarantees basic protections to all patients, regardless of where they live or how they purchase their health insurance. The Ganske-Dingell bill gives every American the right to choose their own doctor; it guarantees that treatment decisions are based on medical, not financial, concerns; and it covers all insured Americans without excluding the millions left out of other proposals like firefighters, teachers, and church employees. I am pleased that the Senate plans to take into consideration a companion version of this legislation in the coming days, and I hope that they will pass it. I urge my colleagues in the House to follow suit. While some members of the House Republican majority are rushing to draft competing legislation to the bipartisan Ganske-Dingell bill that would not provide adequate patient protections to all citizens, I am optimistic that my colleagues will listen to the American people and pass a real Patients’ Bill of Rights that will cover all citizens. The people of south Arkansas and across America deserve it. |
