SENATOR HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON

Home State: New York

TESTIMONY

Good evening, Mr. Secretary, President Chip Khan of Health Insurance Association of America, Executive Director Ronald Pollack of Families USA, Jack Faris of National Federation of Independent Business and Mr. Chairman. Panelists, thank you for joining us today. This is a very exciting time in Congress. A new Congress has convened and I believe that this session holds real hope for passing a bipartisan effort to protect the rights of patients.

In this session of Congress we will need to focus on many aspects of health care; medical privacy, Medicaid funding, genetic discrimination, providing prescription drug coverage for our seniors and long-term care for our families, among others. Today I would like to talk about the importance of protecting the rights of those who are insured.

In all corners of New York, I have met countless people who have provided powerful testimony to the cruel inequities and injustices of our health care system. In Massena, a young women suffering from cancer told me how much trouble she had finding treatment. While she had a plan that covered her necessary treatment, she never received care because her HMO refused to provide the coverage that was initially included in her plan. Such injustices cannot continue to occur.

We must help these people find affordable, quality health care. Good health insurance should not be a luxury. It should be a fact of life for Americans everywhere. Throughout New York, both within our urban and rural communities, there is a call to guarantee quality health care as well to guarantee the protection of the rights of those insured.

Throughout the Clinton-Gore administration, such guarantees have been goals of mine. With the help of both Democrats and Republicans, we were able to pass the Kassebaum-Kennedy Health Insurance Portability and Protection Act, the Family and Medical leave Act and the Chaffee Bill. However, expanding health care coverage is not enough. We must also work to improve the quality of coverage. A meaningful patient bill of rights is long overdue. That is why I am pleased to be a co-sponsor of the McCain-Edwards-Kennedy Patient Protection Act of 2001.

We must develop policies that cover more uninsured Americans without encouraging businesses to drop or reduce their employees' health benefits. Second, we should make improvements to our health care system without creating needless, burdensome Federal and state bureaucracies. Third, we should encourage strong accountability provisions in states in order to protect patients. We should look at states such as Texas, who already allow patient claims against insurance companies, as a paradigm to emulate throughout the county. The strength of this bill lies in the very fact that it tries to accomplish the aforementioned goals.

At this point I would like to commend President Bush's recent proposals for a patient's bill of rights. I celebrate the spirit in which he states, in a letter to Congress, that he will work together with bipartisan members of Congress to provide a "strong Patients' Bill of Rights that protects all Americans". This legislation meets every one of them, with only one exception: the President wants to preempt state laws that allow people to seek relief in state courts when they are injured by bad HMO decisions.

In the President's plan, federal courts would award smaller amounts for these patient damages. Yet, in some of these cases, insurance companies' bad faith and flagrant disregard of the terms of their policies could result in death or irreparable injury of a patient. The amount awarded by federal courts would do little to compensate these patients for the appalling damages and sacrifices they have suffered at the hands of HMOs.

While I do not believe that there should be price caps on the amount of money awarded by juries, I think that this bill is a much better compromise and solution than that proposed by the President's bill. We cannot set a price for the value of human life, but at least the caps proposed in this legislation will award more compensation for HMOs bad decisions. Lastly, the President's proposed caps will not serve as an incentive for HMO's to enact better, and more inclusive policies. Price caps put HMO's in the position of doing cost-benefit analysis instead of thinking of providing quality coverage. Extended coverage is ineffective without the twin component of quality care.

I also strongly believe that there should be external review boards as supported by this bill. Not only do I support this plan, but I believe that HMOs should be held liable in a court of law and patients should be able to initiate recourse through the law for immoral decisions. Lastly, even though President Bush proposes to move all litigation to a federal level I believe that it should be left up to the states to govern and allocate their responsibly decided limits. At this point, it is unclear to me how the President proposes to federalize negligent medical judgment by health maintenance organizations while at the same time preserving state laws, like those in Texas.

Additionally, the President states that he cannot support a plan that encourages unnecessary or frivolous litigation. However, as we have witnessed in the President's own state of Texas, where patient's right to sue HMOs has existed for three years, frivolous litigation is not a concern. Only 15 such lawsuits have been brought to the Texas courts in the last three years.

As such, we should not allow these objections to stand in the way of progress. I believe that President Bush can transform the rhetoric of leadership into the reality of accomplishment by embracing this bipartisan Patient Protection Act. Across country, Democrats and Republicans are joined together in support of this patient's bill of rights.

In conclusion, honored guests, I appreciate the opportunity to speak today and I look forward to working with my colleagues on improving the health of our nation.

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