President Bush on Wed., March 21, 2001, stated that while he favors passage of legislation creating a patient's bill of rights, none of the bills currently before Congress is the one he will sign.

"I want to sign a patients' bill of rights this year, but I will not sign a bad one. And I cannot sign any one that is now before the Congress," stated the President. "So enacting a patients' bill of rights this year is going to require some different thinking, a new approach, based on sound principles." 

Other patients' rights bills currently before Congress are S. 6, Patients' Bill of Rights Act, sponsored by Sen. Thomas Daschle (D-SD), and S. 283, Bipartisan Patient Protection Act of 2001, sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

The president has stated that these bills fail to provide adequate protections for health care plans against unnecessary and unreasonable law suits filed by patients.

Speaking to members of the American College of Cardiology in Orlando, Florida, President Bush called on both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, "to work together to pass a comprehensive and meaningful patients' bill of rights."

The president also presented the principals he expects to see in a federal patients' bill of rights law. 

• "First, a federal patients' bill of rights must cover everyone, all patients in all private health plans. The standard should be strong enough to protect everyone, yet flexible enough to preserve the good work that has already been done in many states."
  
  
• "Second, we must guarantee all patients important rights: the right to get emergency treatment at the nearest emergency room; the right to see a specialist when they need one -- say, just for an example, the right to see a cardiologist for a heart problem."
  
  
• "Third, if medical care is denied, patients should have the right to a fair and immediate review. People want health care quickly. They don't want to have to go through a legal, lengthy process to get it. I want to sign a bill that protects patients' rights with a strong, binding, independent review process. If your health plan -- if your health plan denies you care, you should be able to appeal immediately to an independent, impartial review panel of medical doctors."
  
  
• "Fourth, a patients' bill of rights should offer patients who have been harmed a meaningful remedy, without inviting frivolous lawsuits. After independent review, if you have been harmed by your HMO's refusal to provide care, you have a legitimate complaint, and you should have recourse in court. With a strong, independent review process, most disagreements should not wind up in court. Our federal legislation must allow the review process to work, not short-circuit it by inviting unnecessary lawsuits. With strong independent review, doctors make medical decisions; not the lawyers."

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