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Politicians sense the backlash against managed care.
They even exploit it for electoral gain. The response to the backlash is taking two forms, though they are really flip sides of the same coin. First, states have enacted a series of toothless restrictions on managed care organizations, things like mandatory disclosure of fine-print information, report cards based on spurious patient satisfaction surveys, and limits on the use of financial incentives for physicians to deny care. Second, various states, the industry itself, and Congress are playing with the idea of patient rights, giving patients rights to emergency care, a guaranteed night in the hospital for women giving birth or having mastectomies, rights to hear about treatment options from their doctors, and, most important in the American pantheon of rights, due process rights to appeal care denials and sue plans for malpractice. An individual, even one armed with procedural rights, hardly stands a chance against a corporation.