Word: hmos
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...shouldn't have been surprised. Bush, like Kennedy, wants more protections for patients, including more access to emergency rooms, specialty care and clinical trials. But he wants no part of provisions in the Kennedy bill that would allow aggrieved patients to sue HMOs in state court and win jury awards of up to $5 million. Conservative Republicans in Congress were appalled at the thought of a Kennedy-Bush compromise on the legislation, but they needn't have worried. Bush wasn't eager to strike any deal that would burnish the reputation of McCain, his bitter opponent in the Republican presidential...
...filed in state courts, and put in place ironclad guarantees that employers can't be sued over the health-care benefits they offer. "This bill is a disaster for employers and employees," claims Senate minority whip Don Nickles. The new regulations and costs it imposes on insurers and HMOs, he adds, "could cause millions of people to lose their insurance...
...administration either. Republican Rep. Ernie Fletcher, a doctor, had been talking up his patients bill with White House aides for several months, but getting little more than mild interest. Fletcher's measure was nearly identical to Frist's, except that Fletcher eventually added a provision allowing patients to sue HMOs in state courts in a limited number of cases. Fletcher attached the state court provision as sweetener to draw off Republicans from the Norwood bill. The White House, however, wasn't eager to open the window even slightly to state courts, so the talks with Fletcher meandered...
...Frist or Nickles plan, the White House and Lott settled on a hodgepodge of amendments grafted from both plans that Republicans threw at the Democratic bill to pick it apart. Lott also tried for a while to string out debate on the measure to give attack ads aired by HMOs and health insurance companies time to soften up the Dems. The TV attack ads and GOP rhetoric zeroed in on a provision in the Kennedy-McCain-Edwards bill that allowed employers to be sued if they were directly involved in medical decisions for their workers. Republicans figured that warning about...
...White House meeting last Tuesday. With Democrats in control of the Senate and moderate Republicans lining up with them, passage of a generous patients'-rights bill was inevitable. Pressed by Hughes and others, Bush threw his support behind a House alternative giving patients a limited right to sue HMOs in state court--something he had long opposed. "This legislation...will make a difference in people's lives," he enthused at a photo op staged by Hughes. By Friday night, when the Senate passed its bill 59-36, the veto threat was still the official position, but White House aides were...