Managing the managers: legislation targets managed care cost-cutting, quality.

WASHINGTON - Asserting that broad federal rules are needed to govern managed care plans, two Democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill in both chambers of Congress that would regulate how HMOs and other networks treat patients.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Mich., last week submitted the Quality Assurance and Patient Protection Act, nicknaming it the "Health Insurance Bill of Rights Act." Both argued that an overly tenacious emphasis on cost-cutting among health plans and employers had created a worrisome lack of regard for quality issues and many discontented patients.

The bill, which the Democrats have not yet offered to their Republican counterparts for bipartisan sponsorship, includes rules on how managed care plans must grant medical care to patients and mandates on keeping track of patient treatment data.

The bill, H.R. 820 in the House and S. 353 in the Senate, specifies in some detail what rights patients would have in obtaining emergency and specialist care through their plans. Plans could not deny …