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  Simon Perng Please support my political action committee, Simon says. Inquire at simonperng@hotmail.com. Click Here for more articles by Simon Perng

Sick and tired of a Clintonian era of flaky promises and PR mind games, Americans have now exhausted their patience for a Patients’ Bill of Rights to materialize.

One year ago, President Bill Clinton promised Americans his support for a Patients’ Bill of Rights, but reneged on his pledge when he attempted to exploit the issue to aid Prince Albert’s quest for the presidency.

Clinton held real HMO reform hostage when he refused to bargain with Congress and get it passed, fully intending all along to create a dramatic stalemate for Vice President Al Gore to use as an issue to hammer then Gov. George W. Bush and Republicans at the polls.

But now, thanks to vigorous cooperative efforts by the Bush Administration, House leaders and especially Rep. Charlie Norwood, R-Ga., Americans may very well get a Patients’ Bill of Rights by the end of the year.

Now real HMO reform only awaits the final stage of the legislative process before arriving on the President’s desk: the conference committee.

Should the House version of HMO reform prevail in conference, it would be a significant advancement for patients’ rights. It guarantees HMO coverage of emergency care, health care by specialists and enables patients to sue HMOs even after the independent review arbiters rule in favor of the HMO. It sets caps on punitive damages at $1.5 million to check the economic havoc of run-amok federal lawsuit judgments that limit HMO ability to pay regular health care claims.

  Illustration by RODERICK ROXAS/Daily Bruin

The Norwood compromise even contains provisions (initially opposed by the President) to allow patients to sue HMOs in state courts, which usually set no statutory limits on punitive damages.

Norwood aided its passage the most by playing the role of dealmaker, thus sidestepping a skirmish on the House floor. Norwood, renowned for his bipartisanship and experience on the issue from proposing similar HMO reforms in 1999, managed to strike a compromise proposal that would win the President’s support plus moderate Republicans and some Democrats to pass the House.

Hopefully, the Democrat-controlled Senate will show true statesmanship by cooperating with the House in the conference committee and craft a signable Patients’ Bill of Rights that reflects the priorities of the Norwood compromise.

Even though it seems rather premature for some pundits to speculate and campaign on an unfinished legislative work in process, some partisan liberal Democrats are now eager to spin and criticize President Bush’s and Norwood’s accomplishments on getting a Patients’ Bill of Rights.

They hastily forget that they had their chance to act on it just less than a year ago, and now they’re bitter that the other guys’ are actually succeeding where they had failed.

Nonetheless, I should address the typical liberals’ spins and distortions that seek to distract public attention from the merits of the pending HMO reform.

Liberals opt to ignore the substantial advancement for patients’ rights contained in the House Patients’ Rights bill, focusing instead on only one primary point of common dispute between Democrats and Republicans: the litigation reforms.

They speciously complain that this bill limits a patient’s right of legal recourse against an HMO.

First of all, the House Patients’ Rights bill limits only two classification of damages: punitive and pain and suffering. Those that win judgments against HMOs may still receive unlimited compensatory damages (which seek to correct the wrong) but punitive and pain and suffering damages must be limited to $1.5 million.

This limitation is based on a principle that punitive damages should still be in place to punish the HMO, but they should not be so immense as to verge on disrupting its ability to provide health care to others. Assessing punitive or pain and suffering damages can emit strong emotional sentiments from juries and judges such that they may vary immensely in dollar amount and can verge on the ludicrously malicious and destructive. This is just plain common sense.

Second, unlimited compensatory damages means no one will get short-changed by the legal system – the HMO must still pay any full amount to compensate for its wrong. Therefore, patients still have plenty of legal recourse against HMOs when necessary.

Finally, these punitive damage limits apply to federal cases only. Patients can still opt to sue HMOs in state court and collect unlimited compensatory and punitive damages.

Democrats claim that the House bill provides a litigation advantage for the HMO industry, but I don’t see how HMOs are any more shielded from liability; it’s really only a matter of counting dollar amounts.

If anyone appears beholden to a special interest, it is the Democratic Party. Democrats routinely receive millions of dollars in campaign contributions from trial lawyers. Thus, it shouldn’t surprise me that they would act on behalf of their trial lawyer friends and seek to overturn these limits on punitive damages since they would limit attorney fee income.

Liberal Democrats may claim to support “a real Patients’ Bill of Rights,” but they instead prefer one that coddles a destructive and parasitic influence on managed health care: trial lawyers. These trial lawyers pose an imminent threat to America’s managed health care by seeking massive judgment awards, while forcing HMOs to replenish funds to fulfill claims by either gutting medical services or raising member rates.