|
|||
Late Breaking News |
|||
| Date: July 15, 1998 4:09 pm Contact: AFL-CIO Naomi Walker 202/637-5093 |
|||
Latest News Releases
|
Grassroots Campaign By AFL-CIO Aims To Pass the Patients' Bill Of Rights; New Radio And TV Ads Focus On HMO Reform | ||
| WASHINGTON - July 15 - Today the AFL-CIO launched a nationwide
grassroots campaign to send a message to Congress: working families want and need a strong
Patients’ Bill of Rights and they want Congress to act quickly. The effort includes worksite mobilization and community outreach in scores of Democratic and Republican congressional districts, including television and radio spots that send messages urging support to 21 House members and five Senators. The Patients’ Bill of Rights Act, sponsored by Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) and Rep. Greg Ganske (R-IA) in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) in the U.S. Senate, responds to widespread concerns about health care quality under HMOs by guaranteeing basic rights to health care consumers. The proposed legislation ensures the right to have treatment decisions made by your doctor and not insurance company bureaucrats, the right to see specialists whose care you need, the right to emergency room care when and where you need it, the right to appeal a health care decision with which you disagree, and the right to sue managed care companies. Overwhelming congressional support exists for this proposed legislation: over 182 Democrats, seven Republicans, and one Independent have signed on as co-sponsors. "No health care system should be built upon denying care instead of providing it," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. The health insurance industry is spending millions of dollars in advertising and lobbying to defeat the Patients’ Bill of Rights Act. Over the last year, HMOs have contributed heavily to many of the members of Congress who are resisting patient protection legislation. "To derail real HMO reform, some members of Congress are introducing diluted bills which fall far short of providing the essential protections that patients need against an increasingly greedy health insurance industry," Sweeney said. "Working families do not have to settle for a watered-down version of patient protections," he said. "Politicians who compromise the vital patient protections included in the bill are engaging in election-year posturing while still carrying the water for the health insurance industry." Nearly half of Americans say that they or someone they know has had a bad experience with an HMO, according to a recent poll conducted by Lake, Sosin, Snell, and Perry. More than 90% of Americans believe that a patient protection act is needed and would support the provisions of the Patients’ Bill of Rights. Healthcare providers are also protesting the managed care industry’s practices. Recently, more than 2000 physicians signed a manifesto which appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association which said: "Physicians and nurses are being prodded by threats and bribes to abdicate allegiance to patients, to shun the sickest who may be unprofitable. Some of us risk being fired or ‘delisted’ for giving, or even discussing, expensive services, and many are offered bonuses for minimizing care." The ads will run in the districts of eight Democratic and 13 Republican members of Congress. Of the Senators named in ads, four are Republicans and one is a Democrat. In addition to the ads, the AFL-CIO has organized a national "Call Congress Week" during which working families will urge their representatives to support the bill. Union members will also hold meetings with their member of congress to press for action on the Patients’ Bill of Rights. "Doctors, not insurance company bureaucrats working 2000 miles away, should decide what type of treatment you get and which medicines you take. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that medical professionals should make medical decisions and that people, not profits, should guide health care decisions. It’s just that simple — and Americans know it," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. Unions represent more than one in four Americans with employer-based health insurance. Unions are also the largest group of organized healthcare purchasers and represent both providers and consumers of managed care. The ads are part of the organization’s continuing educational outreach program to mobilize America’s working families around issues central to their lives and futures. ### |
|||
