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CNN Live At Daybreak

Senators Bill Frist and Jeff Bingaman on Patients Bill of Rights

Aired June 19, 2001 - 07:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: The Senate is getting ready to battle it out over patients' rights. The patients bill of rights is the first major legislation to reach the floor since Democrats took control of the Senate.

Let's take a look at the two versions of the proposal. From the Republican side: Senator Bill Frist, a medical doctor and co-author of a plan that is favored by President Bush. He joins us from the Senate Gallery. We're going to get the Democratic side in just a moment, but let's begin with the Republican side.

First of all Senator Frist, are the Republicans going to delay this bill? There's been a suggestion already that they need more time to study the Democrat -- Democratic version of it. What's going to happen?

SEN. BILL FRIST (R), TENNESSEE: Well, we'll see as the day goes on. The most latest version of the Kennedy bill was just introduced last Thursday, so I doubt that very many of the United Senators have read that 200-page bill over the last couple of days. It was introduced in just the last few minutes before we shut out the end of last week.

MCEDWARDS: So, Senator, what would the Republican bill do that the Democratic bill would not?

FRIST: Well, let me say, our bill is a bipartisan bill. It is consistent with the president's principles of covering all Americans and make sure that we give patients and doctors the ability to make decisions and not HMOs. And we don't have frivolous lawsuits.

Our bill offers strong patient protections. We have an internal appeals process, an external review process, where you have independent physicians making a decision. And then, if the HMO has caused injury or harm, you can go to court and you can sue for unlimited economic damages.

That is appropriate in terms of making absolutely sure we return medical decision-making back to that doctor-patient relationship. The bill on the other side is very different. You can sue employers, employers who are out there trying to provide insurance for 170 million Americans. Their bill is going to result in opening the floodgates to massive litigation -- massive litigation. Dollars are going to be going into the wallets of these trial lawyers.

But that increased expense and increased cost is going to translate down to about 1.2 million people losing their health insurance.

MCEDWARDS: We'll get the response to that in just a moment. But one of the other major differences on that issue between your two bills is that your bill, as I understand it, would require people to go through a process -- a sort of administrative process before an issue ever gets to court. Explain what the reasoning is behind that.

FRIST: Well, the reasoning is that we want to eliminate frivolous lawsuits. Remember, these trial lawyers are taking out of these multimillion dollar awards, taking 40 cents on the dollar and putting it in their pocket. They have an incentive to go directly to court. We want the courts and the trial lawyers and the personal injury lawyers to be the last resort, not the first.

Our objective is to get the care you need when you need it -- not later, not three years later.

MCEDWARDS: All right.

FRIST: Now, under our bill, you can sue for the care at any time. You don't have to go through the appeals for the care. It's those multibillion dollar rewards that you can't sue for until you go through the appeals process.

MCEDWARDS: Let's just leave that right to sue for just a moment. Bottom line here: If a person's sick, if they need access to a specialist, let's say, or they have an emergency, how would your bill help them? What would it give them that they don't get now?

FRIST: The difference is -- there's no difference in the two bills. Under our bill, you have patient protection. There's no big differences is in patient protections: access to specialists, access to emergency rooms, elimination of gag clauses, access to clinical trials, referral to other physicians. Those are the protections that we guarantee all Americans.

If for some reason that care wasn't delivered, you go through an internal appeals process within a matter of hours. If you still don't get the care you think you should, you go to the external appeals process with an independent physician making the decision. And then, at that point, the bills are markedly different. They have these unlimited windfalls to the personal injury lawyers. We basically have balanced appropriate compensation to the patient if they've been hurt.

MCEDWARDS: All right, Senator Bill Frist, we've got to leave it there. Thanks very much.

FRIST: Thank you.

MCEDWARDS: All right, let's get the Democratic side of this patients' rights issue. With that we've got Democratic Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico. Senator Bingaman, I'm sure you just heard some of those comments. It seems to me that the Republicans are saying if you're a lawyer, you're going to love the Democratic version of this bill.

SEN. JEFF BINGAMAN (D), NEW MEXICO: Well, that is what they're saying. Obviously that's not the case.

The truth is, today you have many rights as against the physician if there's some malpractice or some action by that physician that causes you injury or death. The -- what we're saying is, there should also be a right of action, a comparable right of action against a health maintenance organization if, in fact, that health maintenance organization is the one that steps in and interferes with what the physician has prescribed. So that's all we're saying as far as the compensation.

Now, the main thrust of the bill is to give protections to people so that they can see specialists, so they can go to the emergency room nearest to them if they have an emergency. Those are protections that are in this -- in the bill that is coming to the Senate floor that Senator McCain and Senator Edwards and Senator Kennedy worked on, and which is, I believe, a very good bill.

MCEDWARDS: Senator Bingaman, just on that -- on that issue of right to sue for a moment, if you allow people the right to sue in state court, why wouldn't that affect premiums and make premiums skyrocket?

BINGAMAN: Well, the Congressional Budget Office has said that one of the -- one version of the bill, the one that Senator Frist just talked about, will increase the cost of health care by 3 percent. The other bill will increase it by 4 percent.

So there is a -- there is an increase in the cost of health care under either bill. And the question is: Which bill gives you the most -- the most protections, the most benefit for the consumer, for the patient? And I think, clearly, the bill which is coming to the floor that Senator McCain and Senator Edwards and Senator Kennedy worked on, that's the bill I believe that provides those protections.

MCEDWARDS: All right, Senator Bingaman, thanks very much.

I've got to turn a bit of a corner here on you, if I may, to another topic, a topic about energy price controls. You're the chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. And I understand that today you are calling a members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, to explain themselves.

Can you explain to us what you're hoping to find out?

BINGAMAN: Well, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission came out with an order yesterday which substantially expands the previous orders they had in place and does limit price amounts that can be charged in California and the 11 other Western states.

Now, what we're saying is, we want them to explain how they believe this will work, how they believe this affects what has been charged in California in the past. Do they think this will resolve the problem? I think it's a major step forward, what they've done. But, obviously, the devil is in the details. We need to know the specifics.

MCEDWARDS: So would this -- would this eliminate any need for price control legislation?

BINGAMAN: Well, we're not sure. And I think that's the main -- the main purpose of our hearing, is to say: Is this going to be adequate? Is -- are the results going to be there? Are prices going to subside and stay down in California and throughout the West? We're going to have to hear from them. We're going to have to hear from other experts today and try to -- try to determine that.

MCEDWARDS: All right, we will watch for those developments today.

Senator Jeff Bingaman, thank you for your time this morning -- appreciate it.

BINGAMAN: Thank you.

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