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AMA Asked to Change Patients Rights Stance NewsMax.com WiresCHICAGO, Ill. -- The secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services challenged delegates of the American Medical Association Sunday to change their organization's stance and support President Bush's version of a Patients Bill of Rights now being debated in Congress. "We are nearly 90 percent in agreement on the Patients Bill of Rights," HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson said in an opening address to the 100th meeting of the AMA's House of Delegates, the policy-making body of the 290,000-member organization. "Give President Bush a bill he can sign," Thompson said, noting that the presently proposed law, the McCain/Edwards Patient Protection Act, contains language regarding the ability to sue health management organizations (HMOs) that is opposed by the administration. Thompson said the current proposal that allows patients to seek redress in both federal and state courts and a proposes a higher cap on damages - $5 million - is unacceptable to President Bush. The AMA is on record as supporting the McCain/Edwards proposal. "All along we have asked for accountability.' said Dr. Thomas Reardon, immediate past president of the AMA and the organization's spokesman on the Bill of Rights legislation. "We want the HMOs to be just as accountable for medical decision as are doctors. We think that if doctors can be sued in state courts - which we believe is the correct place for such suits - then so should the HMOs. "We feel very strongly about this," Reardon told United Press International, "and we still do. Secretary Thompson, I believe, was using the House of Medicine (the AMA) as a sounding board. We listened. We think our policy is the right policy." Thompson said the high caps on damages might induce businesses to cancel insurance coverage for fear that the business as well as doctors and HMOs could face liability in claims of bill of Rights violations. "It would be a serious mistake to allow trial lawyers to shape their cases so they could get into state or federal courts," Thompson told the AMA delegates. Reardon said the argument that businesses might abandon insurance coverage for employees is a smokescreen. He said that in Texas, under Patients' Bill of Rights laws that were created when President Bush was governor, health coverage has actually increased as more small business began covering employees. Although Thompson argued that President Bush would be unwilling to sign the law as it now stands, Thompson left room for negotiation. "I am not drawing a line in the sand," he said, although he implied that if the Patients Bill of Rights failed, one of the reasons would be the lack of support by doctors for the President's concerns. During his half-hour talk to the five-day meeting of the House of Delegates, Thompson was applauded frequently, especially when he assured the delegates that changes would be made in dealing with Medicare and Medicaid paperwork that would free doctors from paperwork burdens and allow them to practice more medicine. And he promised the delegates greater understanding from his staff. "Instead of saying 'no' to doctors, we will try to find a way to say 'yes'," he told them. He encouraged the doctors to tell him about problems. He also said doctors should go beyond complaining and suggest solutions. Overall, Reardon said, "Thompson's talk was a positive speech. He discussed positive changes in HHS and in other agencies that we will benefits doctors and patients." Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved.
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