EMERSON COMES UNDER FIRE FROM RIGHT TO WORK GROUP

The president of the National Right to Work Committee has accused U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson of casting "a cynical vote against freedom of choice for employees" in voting against a Right to Work amendment dealing with doctors.

The president, Reed Larson, said Emerson pledged to oppose compulsory unionism when she ran for Congress in 1996.

"Apparently, she thinks flip-flopping now is a clever political tactic," said Larson, who heads an organization that boasts it has 2.2 million members.

But Emerson said she voted against the amendment because it would have gutted the Quality Health Care Coalition Act.

The House this summer passed the legislation, without the amendment, on a vote of 276 to 136.

The bill, H.R. 1304, would revise federal antitrust law to allow doctors in private practices to band together in negotiations with health insurers.

Managed-care companies have been dictating what doctors can or can't do in treating patients, she said. The insurance companies limit the situations in which doctors can refer patients to specialists.

The congresswoman said there used to be 18 leading health insurance companies in the nation. Today, there are about six.

"They now have so much control over health care," Emerson said.

The Republican congresswoman cited the 1999 case of a 40-year-old woman in New Madrid. Her doctor told her she needed a hysterectomy. The insurance company said a different procedure was needed.

Even after two other doctors agreed she needed a hysterectomy, the insurance company refused to pay for it.

"She had more pain and missed more work," Emerson said.

In the end, the woman had a hysterectomy after ending up in a hospital emergency room. The insurance company paid for it after Emerson personally intervened and raised the issue with the president of the insurance company.

Emerson said cases like that point to the need for doctors to be able to band together to negotiate with managed-care companies.

She said a number of doctors in Southeast Missouri have voiced support for the healthcare bill.

Larson said the amendment to the bill would have stipulated that a doctor couldn't be forced to join or financially support a labor union in order to be compensated for his or her services by a health plan.

He accused Emerson of joining with 186 "Big Labor Democrats, one avowed socialist and a couple dozen other union boss-appeasing Republicans" to spike the Right to Work amendment. The amendment was rejected in June by a vote of 201 for to 214 against.

But Emerson said the bill doesn't address unions in any way. The legislation doesn't compel doctors to join a union, she said.

Emerson said she views Right to Work as a state issue rather than a federal issue.

Larson said the House bill likely will face opposition in the Senate, partly because it doesn't include the Right to Work amendment.

Emerson agreed the bill likely won't make it through the Senate this year, but for a different reason.

"The Senate is an absolute mess," she said. "They can't get anything done."

Politics has slowed action on bills in the Senate, Emerson said. "One senator can totally bottle up an issue forever and ever and ever."