About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

68 IRET Congressional Advisory 1 (1998)

handle is hein.taxfoundation/iretcgadv0065 and id is 1 raw text is: 'a April 3, 1998 No. 68 THE PATIENT ACCESS TO RESPONSIBLE CARE ACT (PARCA) IS BAD MEDICINE Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-GA) is sponsoring H.R. 1415, the Patient Access to Responsible Care Act (PARCA). Although the financing and delivery of health care are already very heavily regulated industries, Mr. Norwood's bill would substantially expand government control. It has attracted over 200 co-sponsors in the House on both sides of the aisle, and Senator Alfonse D'Amato (R-NY) has introduced companion PARCA wou legislation (S. 644) in the lowered healt Senate. improing peo, PARCA would impose reality, it o many new responsibilities and both fronts, i requirements on managed costs and redi health care plans, health-care insurers, and employers who self-insure their workers' health care coverage. One estimate is that implementing PARCA would result in 500 new federal regulations. Some of its provisions would: Require health plans to provide enrollees with highly detailed information in 13 separate areas; Bar plans from imposing gag orders on physicians and other health-care practitioners; Require plans to pay for many emergency room visits made without prior approval; Limit the ability of plans to use family doctors as gatekeepers between enrollees and specialists; Prohibit plans from denying coverage or reimbursing at a lower rate if enrollees go to physicians and other practitioners outside the plan; Bar plans from denying coverage to applicants on the basis of age, medical history, and certain other criteria (known as a guaranteed issue requirement) and bar plans from basing rates on age, existing conditions, and certain other criteria (known as community rating); Override the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) by letting employees of businesses with self-insured plans include the businesses as defendants in malpractice suits. PARCA is largely a reaction to the explosive growth of health maintenance organizations (HMOs) and other managed care plans. Between 1993 and 1996, HMO membership rose by 50%, from 45 million to 67 million. Managed care plans provide a trade off: they are less expensive than fee- I be desirable if it care costs while lie's choices, but, inl ild hurit peole onl waising health car-e Icing op~tionls. for-service plans, but they achieve much of their cost savings by limiting medical access. That trade off is not necessarily bad. Just as people often choose to save money on a trip by traveling coach rather than first class, some people desire to accept the limitations of a managed care plan in order to enjoy its cost savings. Because managed care plans have been growing so rapidly, however, many people are new to them and did not understand the service-cost trade off before enrolling. In addition, some plans may have restricted service too much in their efforts to control costs. Further, most people receive employer- provided health coverage, and some of those people, especially at smaller companies, were switched by their employers into cost-saving managed care plans Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation IRET is a non-profit, tax exempt 501(c)(3) economic policy research and educational organization devoted to informing the public about policies that will promote economic growth and efficient operation of the free market economy. 1730 K Street, N., Suite 910, Washington, D.C. 20006 Voice 202-463-1400 * Fax 202-463-6199 0 Internet www.iret.org

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most