Justice For All
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Help Get Managed Care Legislation Moving!
Families USA has put together this excellent alert.
Please ask your organization to sign up as an endorser!
Endorse the Patients' Bill of Rights Today!
OVERVIEW: Crucial managed care consumer protections are bottled up
in Congress. Despite broad congressional backing and polls showing
overwhelming public support, the House and Senate leadership have
refused to bring managed care legislation to the floor.
Your help is needed NOW to turn up the heat on Congress.
BACKGROUND: To break the congressional logjam on managed care
legislation, we need to demonstrate the breadth and depth of public
support for action. To do this, advocates are working to get as
many groups as possible to endorse the Patients' Bill of Rights Act.
This legislation, described in the April "asap! Update," was
introduced in the House (H.R. 3605) by Reps. John Dingell (D-MI)
and Dick Gephardt (D-MO); the Senate bill (S. 1890) was sponsored
by Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA).
More than 100 national groups have already endorsed this bill, which
has the clearest and most comprehensive language of any of the
pending managed care consumer protection bills. Backers are now
seeking endorsements by state and local groups, as well.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: If you want more details on the Patients'
Bill of Rights Act, you can find the text of the bill on the world
wide web at <http://thomas.loc.gov> (the congressional web site
maintained by the Library of Congress). Families USA has prepared
a side-by-side comparison of the Patients' Bill of Rights, Georgia
Rep. Charlie Norwood*s PARCA bill, and Vermont Sen. James Jeffords'
QUEST bill; this comparison will be posted on the Families USA web
site <www.familiesusa.org> by noon on Wednesday, June 3rd. If you
do not have web access and want more details on the legislation,
call Jamie Zembruski at Families USA and we will fax you the relevant
parts of the side-by-side covering the Patients' Bill of Rights.
WHAT YOU CAN DO: If your organization is willing to endorse the
Patients' Bill of Rights Act, please send us the form below.
You can fax it to (202) 347-2417) or e-mail it to asap(AT)familiesusa.org.
PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND BY PRESSING THE REPLY BUTTON ON YOUR E-MAIL
SOFTWARE.
Be sure to spell out the name of your group the way you would want it
to appear on the list.
Yes, sign us up as endorsers of the Patients' Bill of Rights Act.
Org. Name:
Address:
City, State & Zip: Your Name:
Phone: E-mail:
Alert 9803
Patrice Franklin, Deputy Field Director
Families USA
1334 G Street N.W.
Washington, DC 20005
202-628-3030
pfranklin(AT)familiesusa.org
Web Site: http://www.familiesusa.org
-- Fred Fay jfa(AT)mailbot.com Justice-For-All Moderator--------- End forwarded message ----------