Californians To Vote On Managed Care "Abuses"

In November, Californians will vote on the state Patient Protection Act, which is the most comprehensive proposal in the nation to reform abuses by health maintenance organizations and managed care plans, according to the California Nurses Association and the Foundation for Taxpayers and Consumer Rights, which sponsored the Act. The legislation garnered more than 830,000 signatures in just eight weeks.

This "unprecedented volunteer mobilization" will propel passage of "this landmark reform," said PPA co-sponsor Harvey Rosenfeld. CNA president Kit Costello said care-givers and consumers are "horrified at the deaths and injuries inflicted daily on patients as a result of unfair restrictions and unsafe changes occurring in care," while CNA executive director Rose Ann DeMoro noted that nurses and consumers "are sending a message to Sacramento and Wall Street that patients should not be denied necessary care due to reckless cost-cutting and a shift in resources that has placed enormous profits in the hands of a few giant corporations and wealthy executives."

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader says that "the passage of protections against reckless corporate limitation of health care quality is essential to maintaining a health care system in which Californians can have confidence. Trained health care professionals should determine medical care, not insurance company bureaucrats."