Word: reformer
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...drained his ability to get them passed. Former chief of staff Erskine Bowles has privately said that last year the White House was ready to make a swap with Republicans: Clinton would support their plan for vouchers in the D.C. school system if they would go for managed-care reform. But at the last minute he realized he couldn't, because doing so would enrage the Democrats, whose votes he needed for impeachment. And one suspects that Clinton will judge last week's State of the Union speech not by how much actually becomes law but simply by whether...
...fact, 86% of the "650 lifers" had never done time; 70% were poor. "A lot of them were young people who made very stupid mistakes but shouldn't have to pay for it for the rest of their lives," says state representative Barbara Dobb, the Republican who began a reform effort. In August, G.O.P. Governor John Engler signed a law allowing 650 lifers to be paroled after 15 years...
ERISA's clear subordination to corporate interests lies near the heart of the national debate over health-care reform. In his State of the Union address, President Clinton once more pressed Congress to pass a Patients' Bill of Rights, a crucial element of which would be the right of any consumer to hold an HMO legally accountable for its medical blunders. Such unlikely allies as consumer-advocate groups and the American Medical Association support this reform. They argue that in attempting to practice cost control, HMOs end up practicing medicine. Even judges have voiced frustration. Ruling in favor...
...Congressional Budget Office concluded that costs would rise only 1.2%, a mere $7 per covered employee per year. House Republicans, led by Dennis Hastert of Illinois, now Speaker, opposed the plan largely on financial grounds, and Norwood's proposal languished. On the state level, intense industry lobbying torpedoed one reform plan after another...
Republican control of Congress may doom hopes of federal ERISA reform anytime soon. Still, Norwood has returned with a new bill that would not only allow patients to sue but would also give them the right to appeal to the courts as soon as an HMO denies care that a doctor recommends. Norwood's bottom line: "If you practice medicine with or without a license, you have to be responsible for your actions should you maim, harm or kill...