White House tries to revive HMO Bill of Rights

By John King/CNN

May 3, 2000
Web posted at: 12:05 p.m. EDT (1605 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White House said Wednesday that President Clinton will attempt to reinvigorate efforts to draft a bipartisan HMO patients' bill of rights by inviting key congressional negotiators to the White House.

The House and Senate have passed different versions of the legislation but have not made much headway in resolving their differences -- including significant differences over a patient's right to sue.

Both parties have said such a bill is an election-year priority, but little progress has been made in reaching a compromise.

White House chief of staff John Podesta met Wednesday with key administration officials involved in the issue -- including Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala and Labor Secretary Alexis Herman -- and leaders from interest and advocacy groups.

After that meeting, administration officials said, the White House will invite members of the House-Senate conference committee to come to the White House Monday.

The participants in the meeting "expressed considerable frustration at the slowness of the conference at dealing with a very strong patients' bill of rights," Shalala said.

"There are thousands of people each day whose lives and the quality of their health care are affected because we do not have national legislation that sets standards and establishes a set of rules that would ensure that they get quality care," Shalala said. "That's more than frustrating -- that's unacceptable."