Lois Capps: “I know many of us, when we saw the managed care plans coming on the horizon as a cost containment method applauded the…”

“I know many of us, when we saw the managed care plans coming on the horizon as a cost containment method applauded the program for its preventive care aspects, and some HMOs still do offer these, and they are to be commended. But many, in their cost cutting methods, have curtailed the prevention aspect and the guidance and some of the extra programs that are offered through counseling and health education, advice for families, and the periodic checkups that are part of a good developmental program for children in favor of cost containment. So I think we should go back and accentuate. We need to point out that this patient's bill of rights is not an attempt to do away with managed care, but to reform it and to bring it back into the arena of the responsibility of health professionals for the care of their patients and the ability of patients to get the kind of care that will be in their best interest in health care.”