ACHE in the news

The following article appeared in various formats in the Helena Independent Record and the Billings Gazette.

Hill votes against bill for patients' rights
By ERICA CURLESS
IR State Bureau

Saying Montanans do not want more lawsuits, Rep. Rick Hill, R-Mont., voted against a sweeping bill passed by the House Thursday that would give patients the right to sue their managed-care health insurance plans. "In the end, excessive lawsuits will only take money away from care and put it into the pockets of attorneys," Hill said in a press release. "That is an unacceptable result."

Though Hill opposed the White-House-backed bill, which passed 275-151, he did support two failed compromise attempts that would have required patients to go through an internal and external appeals process before filing a lawsuit. The Montana Republican also supported a substitute measure that contained no liability provision, similar to current federal laws governing health maintenance organizations

Federal law now bans patients' ability to sue their health network, even if they are injured or die because of an insurance company's decision about treatment. The bill passed Thursday allows patients to sue their managed-care insurance plan in federal or state court and to collect whatever damages a jury might award.

The Montana Legislature gutted a similar bill during the 1999 session that also would have allowed patients to sue their health insurance plans. Lawmakers stripped the liability provision but left intact an independent review process to evaluate complaints made against health networks. This external review process took effect last week.

Both Hill and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana agree that these external reviews are more effective than filling the courts with an avalanche of unnecessary lawsuits. And these lawsuits will skyrocket the cost of health insurance and make it even less accessible to Americans.

"He (Hill) saw the folly in tacking a liability on to the cost of medical care and health insurance," said Chuck Butler, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana's vice president of government and public relations. "Nobody gets better from a lawsuit."

But Susan Good, Allied Citizens for Health Care Equity director, said that's trite and that lawmakers should hold managed-care companies to the same standards as other industries. She added that giving patients the ability to sue their insurance companies won't increase insurance premiums and may even entice more people to buy health coverage.

"If managed-care companies do what they are supposed to be doing, it might just work the other way," Good said. "It makes it more attractive to buy."

Texas state law already allows patients to sue their health insurers and the cost of insurance has only increased 13 cents a month or $1.56 annually, Good said.

Butler disagreed. He said it's ironic that the House passed the liability provision the same week the Census Bureau reported that the number of people without health insurance grew by nearly a million people in the last year. In Montana, that means nearly one of every five people are uninsured or 19.6 percent of the population.

Butler said this bill would only increase the number of uninsured.

Good argued that insurance lobbyists will now try to take the focus off of patients' rights by talking about the number of people uninsured. She said the liability provision won't affect the problem, adding that lack of competition is the root of Montana's uninsured problem.

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