On Capitol Hill, health care bills fall back

The patients' bill of rights may still receive some attention, but a Medicare drug benefit and health coverage expansion proposals face tough odds.

By Amy Snow Landa, AMNews staff. Oct. 1, 2001.

Washington -- The Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon immediately and dramatically altered the policy agenda in Washington, D.C.

Before the terrorist assaults, Congress and the White House had a full slate of health care issues they were hoping to resolve this fall -- the patients' bill of rights, a Medicare outpatient prescription drug benefit and the expansion of health care coverage to uninsured Americans. But there is now widespread acceptance that those issues have slipped far down the list of national priorities, at least for the time being.

President Bush and members of his administration are devoting much of their energy to the nation's immediate security and defense concerns, while on Capitol Hill the focus has narrowed as well. Congressional committees postponed indefinitely several hearings on health care issues that were scheduled for late September.

But despite the rapid rearrangement of priorities, Bush continues to seek agreement on important domestic issues, including a patients' bill of rights, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said Sept. 17.

At a meeting soon after the attack, Bush reminded Cabinet members "that a patients' bill of rights remains important; that there are a series of initiatives that are pending up on the Hill that remain important," Fleischer said. Bush called for resolution on those issues.

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.), a lead sponsor of the Senate measure, also would like to see patients' rights legislation enacted this year, according to his spokesman. [...]