Doctors hit McCain
over patients’ rights

A national physicians’ organization has accused maverick Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona of “aiding and abetting enemies of patients’ freedom” by claiming that doctors have offered “unanimous support” for the so-called “Patient’s Bill of Rights” currently under consideration in the Senate.

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons said Thursday, in a statement, that McCain has asserted in recent interviews that all physicians are supporting the bill, which he co-authored with Democratic Sens. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina.

“Doctors are not unanimous in their support for the Patient’s Bill of Rights, despite the claims of Sen. McCain in recent interviews such as MSNBC’s ‘Hardball,'” hosted by Chris Matthews, the statement said.

It went on to say that the AAPS “has very publicly opposed this legislation since the first introduction,” with leaders “issuing statements and appearing at news conferences with members of Congress to voice opposition.”

In a letter sent to McCain yesterday, the group said its position on the federal measure “has been consistent and clear.”

“It will increase premiums, decrease the availability of insurance plans, and line the pockets of lawyers and bureaucrats, just as the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill did,” said AAPS Executive Director Jane Orient, M.D.

A statement by McCain posted on his Senate website said, “Our bill puts Americans in charge of their own health care. Physicians utilizing the best medical data must make the medical decisions, not insurance companies or trial lawyers.”

However, the physicians’ group said, McCain was guilty of “aiding and abetting the enemies of patients’ freedom for what seem to be political purposes. …”

The group said it would issue a “patient alert about the problems with the ‘Bipartisan Patient Protection Act [S. 1052/H.R.526]'” currently under debate in the Senate “through thousands of physician offices in the next week.”

If passed and signed into law, the McCain-Kennedy-Edwards bill “would cost state and federal governments $22.6 billion in lost tax revenues over the same period, including $6.9 billion in losses to the Social Security fund,” according to a study by the Congressional Budget Office.

The McCain-sponsored measure “strikes a much needed bipartisan compromise to provide comprehensive patient protections for all Americans while establishing new compromises on a number of contentious issues,” according to a summary on McCain’s website.

A competing version, offered by Sens. Bill Frist, R-Tenn, John Breaux, D-La., and Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., would only cost taxpayers $14.6 billion in lost federal and state revenues over the next 10 years, the CBO said.

The losses in tax and Social Security revenues would be caused by higher health insurance costs from new requirements for medical and emergency care coverage, plus new health care accountability measures imposed on insurers and health maintenance organizations, said the CBO, according to a Washington Times report.

But the AAPS, in its letter to McCain, said “abusive managed care was made in Washington, D.C.,” noting that “one of its major architects was Sen. Kennedy,” who helped author “the HMO Act” in 1974. Ironically, the version of the bill supported by McCain and Kennedy would allow Americans to sue their HMOs for negligent care or denial of care that caused harm.

Currently, HMOs are protected from such suits.

The version McCain supports, Orient noted, “is really a bill of goods. It loads still more onerous and costly federal regulations onto the insurance industry, not just the managed care industry.”

“Insurance may now be slightly more portable, at a very high price – for people who can still get it,” Orient said, adding that after Kennedy-Kassebaum, “many insurance plans just vanished in its wake.”

Orient also accused McCain of helping Kennedy and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. to effect “a total federal takeover of American medicine,” much like Clinton attempted in 1994, during the first term of her husband, President Bill Clinton.

“They are methodically crafting legislation that will achieve their goal, piece by piece, year by year,” Orient wrote. “They strenuously oppose any legislation that will increase patient freedom.”

“Why are you helping them?” Orient asked McCain in her letter.

On Wednesday, President Bush implored Congress to pass a “bipartisan patient’s bill of rights” so he could sign it into law before the end of the year.

He did, however, emphasize the need for a bill that contained proper health care accountability safeguards so “most disagreements will not end up in court.”