The following are key stories about the debate over managed health care and patients' rights from The Washington Post.

House Backs GOP's Health Insurance Tax Breaks
October 7, 1999
House Republicans pushed through a controversial series of tax breaks intended to make it easier for Americans to buy health insurance, while mounting a late but intense campaign to defeat broad new patient protections.

GOP Leaders Open Door on Patients' Right to Sue
October 6, 1999
On the eve of the House debate on how much federal protection to offer patients in HMOs, Republican leaders signaled for the first time Tuesday that they are willing to allow Americans a limited right to sue health plans that deny them the care they want.

Senator Is Challenged on His Medical Opinions
October 5, 1999
In 1994, Bill Frist campaigned to bring his "surgical personality" to the Senate. Five years later, as that senator prepares to run for reelection, his probable opponent is trying to give him a new image: the heartless face of Big Medicine.

Ranks of Uninsured Americans Swelling
October 4, 1999
The number of Americans who lack health insurance continued to increase last year, climbing to 44.3 million in spite of a prosperous economy and recent government efforts to expand coverage.

House Vote on Patients' Rights Set
September 18, 1999
Confronted with a budding rebellion within his own party, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) agreed to allow a vote on the divisive issue of "patients' rights" early next month, freeing the House to move beyond the Senate in clamping down on the nation's HMOs.

Clinton, Congress Pick Up Where They Left Off
September 9, 1999
As Congress returned to work yesterday, President Clinton urged GOP lawmakers to join with him to adopt health reforms pent up on Capitol Hill, including tougher regulations of HMOs, safeguards to keep patients' medical records private and steps to expand Medicare and keep it from going broke.

Hastert Backs Right to Sue HMOs
August 7, 1999
House Republican leaders scrambled to cope with a growing faction of party dissidents who favor strong new regulation of managed-care plans, giving encouragement to a pair of GOP lawmakers who have drafted a more limited set of patient protections.

Managed Care Deal Dims as GOP Feuds
July 30, 1999
Prospects for a GOP compromise on managed-care reform this summer faded in the House yesterday, as Republican leaders appeared unable to reconcile warring factions around a consensus plan.

House GOP Doctors Fight for Patients' Rights
July 27, 1999
There are nine doctors in the House, as well as four dentists. And a few of the Republican doctors are taking a lead role in pushing new protections for managed-care patients, giving their House leaders migraines in the process.

Healthcare Unites Senate GOP
July 18, 1999
Reasserting their control over the Senate's agenda, Senate Republicans united together to escape another humiliating defeat, and at least partially blunt Democrats' offensive on health issues.

Senate Backs Republican Patient Plan
July 16, 1999
The Senate voted to grant patients a wide array of limited new protections devised by Republicans to help people cope with the managed-care plans that have come to dominate the nation's health care system.

Senate Backs Modest Steps on Patients' Rights
July 15, 1999
After defeating Democrats' efforts to grant new rights to patients in managed-care plans, the GOP-controlled Senate came back with more limited protections.

Trading a Big Mac for a Patients Bill of Rights
July 15, 1999
The complex Senate debate over health care reform seems to have boiled – charbroiled? – down to an unlikely nutritional symbol: the Big Mac.

Senate Defeats Two Measures for Patients' Rights
July 14, 1999
The Republican-controlled Senate rejected most major Democratic proposals to strengthen the rights of patients in managed-care plans, including an initiative that would have given physicians, rather than insurance companies, the final say over patients' treatment.

House GOP to Counter Clinton Prescription Plan
July 14, 1999
House GOP leaders plan to offer a tax break to help seniors buy prescription drugs, part of an effort to blunt President Clinton's recent initiative on the politically potent issue, lawmakers said.

Partisanship, Pathos Open Patients' Rights Debate
July 13, 1999
Republicans and Democrats struggled to upstage each other with rhetoric, pathos and parliamentary maneuvers as the Senate opened a politically charged debate over the rights of patients in managed-care health plans.

Health Care Growing as 2000 Issue
July 11, 1999
Already, health care is looming large as Democrats and Republicans joust for control of the House, and almost all the presidential candidates either have staked out their stands or are preparing to join the debate.

Clinton Renews Drive for Patients' Rights
April 10, 1999
President Clinton and congressional Democrats hit the road to pressure Republicans into expanding the rights of patients when dealing with health insurers.

Health Care Reform Hits the Campaign Trail
April 6, 1999
The presidential primaries don't begin for another 10 months, but candidates already are signaling how important health care reform is considered.

Cutting Health Costs Slices Into Charity
April 5, 1999
Research suggests that managed care systematically erodes physicians' willingness to quietly treat people without insurance or money.

'Patients' Rights' Revived as Debate Point
March 18, 1999
A bill taken up by the Senate health committee would expand patients' rights, but senators exhibited deep partisan differences about exactly what the government should do.

Democrats to Revive Health Measure
Nov. 6, 1998
After the strong Democratic showing in the election, President Clinton and his top congressional allies agreed to make a major push to revive legislation to regulate managed health care plans.

Senate Kills 'Patients' Rights' Bill
Oct. 10, 1998
The Senate killed HMO reform on a procedural vote.

U.S. Health Care Costs Likely to Double, New Report Says
Sept. 15, 1998
A respite from rising medical bills that consumers have enjoyed for several years is coming to an end, according to a new federal study.

Clinton Tackles Health Care Incrementally
Aug. 11, 1998
The ghost of President Clinton's failed attempt at health reform four years ago hovers over the current "patients' rights" debate, guiding the strategies of both political parties and shaping what the issue's fate ultimately will be.

Horror Stories a Staple of Health Care Battles
Aug. 10, 1998
Much of the coverage of health maintenance organizations and their alleged shortcomings is driven by "horror stories" that dramatize the supposed heartlessness of cost-cutting. Some may be exaggerated or distorted, others are all too real.

Managed Care Debate Heats Up the Airwaves
July 28, 1998
A clear villain has emerged in the first wave of industry ads opposing stricter regulation of health maintenance organizations: Washington.

Parties Wrestle Over HMO Issue
July 24, 1998
Both parties are attempting to manipulate what they see as one of the few compelling issues for this fall's campaign.

In Kenosha, Most Voters Have an HMO Story
July 19, 1998
A growing number of people say they have had some sort of negative experience with an HMO or know someone who has. In a new nationwide Washington Post-ABC News poll, 63 percent of respondents said "protecting patients' rights" is an important election issue.

Health Care Bill's Price Debated
July 17, 1998
The Democratic approach to increasing the regulation of managed health care would drive up insurance premiums far less than Republicans and the insurance industry have warned, according to a new analysis.

Partisan Split on Patients' Rights Widens
July 16, 1998
Senate Republican leaders announced their plan to safeguard the rights of healthcare patients, setting the stage for a showdown on the dominant issue before Congress this term. Also see: Competing Plans at a Glance.

Senate GOP to Unveil Patients' Rights Bill
July 15, 1998
Senate Republican leaders plan will unveil their version of legislation to strengthen the government's regulation of managed health care, as political jockeying intensifies in an effort to seize control of the popular issue of "patients' rights."

Congress Looks for HMO Cure With Patient Rights Bills
July 2, 1998
Lawmakers face a high-stakes legislative battle over consumer protections for patients in HMOs and other health plans.

Health Insurers Launch TV Ad Blitz to Stop Bills
June 27, 1998
As Democrats and Republicans line up behind patient's rights proposals, the health care industry is planning an ad blitz that will appeal to voters' disdain of federal intrusion.

House GOP Plans Health Care Rights Bill
June 25, 1998
House Republicans, trying to wrest control from Democrats over a new generation of health care reform, unveiled their own version of a federal plan to expand the rights of patients.

Final Say: One Patient's Ordeal
June 24, 1998
Congress is considering ways to tighten controls on HMOs, and one of the most contentious proposals is to guarantee patients the ability to appeal an HMO's decision to an independent authority.

Florida Alters Managed Care's Balance
June 24, 1998
A series of new rules have made Florida one of the most assertive states in the country in responding to a deep well of resentment against managed care that has infiltrated Washington.

Health Care Uproar Has Hill Scrambling
May 31, 1998
The matter of patients' rights is producing considerable political angst, as Democrats and Republicans alike wrestle internally over exactly what kind of reins on managed care would be effective, and over how best to wield the issue to their advantage.

Md. Senate Kills Tough HMO Bill
March 27, 1998
In an abrupt about-face, the Maryland Senate narrowly rejected a plan to hold HMO medical directors personally accountable if they improperly deny treatments as medically unnecessary.

For Doctors, Managed Care's Cost Controls Pose Moral Dilemma
March 15, 1998
The pressure to contain health care spending has brought some doctors to this: lying and cheating to get coverage for care they say patients need.

Medicine's Growing Battle: Getting Health Plans to Pay
March 11, 1998
Increasingly, health plans are delaying and denying payment for care that has already been delivered. Insurance executives, for their part, say they are becoming more adept at spotting inappropriate bills.

Growth in U.S. Health Care Spending Hit 37-Year Low in '96
January 13, 1998
Growth in the nation's health care spending reached a 37-year low in 1996 amid the spread of managed care, but economists and health care analysts say that the 1996 figures are already outdated and that health care spending is again accelerating.

Clinics Losing Ground in Drive Toward Managed Care
January 3, 1998
The placement of residents who are on Medicaid in managed care arrangements is creating ripple effects for parts of the health care safety net that have historically relied on Medicaid income to help them take care of uninsured patients who also arrive at their doors.

Under the Scalpel, Then Out the Door
November 19, 1997
Whether women should be coaxed -- or ordered -- out of the hospital right after a mastectomy is a question that has gripped the attention of politicians in Washington and across the United States.

HMO's Prescription for Change: Flexibility
October 20, 1997
For generations, Kaiser-Permanente set a standard in managed care by running its own medical clinics and staffing them with its own doctors. Now, the Kaiser model of managed care is giving way to a more flexible approach.

Backlash Builds Over Managed Care
June 30, 1997
A political backlash is building against managed care across the country as doctors and patients protest what they see as potentially dangerous penny-pinching by the health care industry.

Managed Care, Once an Elixir, Goes Under Legislative Knife
September 25, 1996
Lawmakers are concerned whether, in the rush to cut costs by shifting millions of people into managed care, the health of patients is being jeopardized.

Costly Savings: Downside of the New Health Care
August 7, 1995
As cost-conscious insurers transform the health care system, some experts are applauding them for bringing greater efficiency to medicine. But many patients and medical professionals argue that the system is cutting corners as well as costs.

Democrats Pull the Plug on Health Care Reform
September 27, 1994
The White House, led by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, abandoned its attempt to sell the country on a complex plan to solve the twin problems of 37 million uninsured Americans and budget-breaking medical inflation.

In Corporate Hands, Health Care Bureaucracy Blooms
September 20, 1994
A market-driven revolution in American health care is giving private insurance bureaucracies more influence over day-to-day medical decisions than President Clinton ever proposed giving the federal government.

HMOs Save Money by Shifting Costs
June 6, 1994
Many HMOs and other health insurance plans that are cited as models of cost effectiveness save money largely by shifting costs to other insurers.