The backlash against managed care, in general, and Health Maintenance Organizations (“HMOs”), in particular, is a major health policy issue. It has led to the formation of major commissions at the national and state levels, and to a great outpouring of legislative activity. The U.S. Congress has been deadlocked over various versions of a Patients’ Bill of Rights for the past two years. As a nation, we are far from resolving the many problems consumers report experiencing with their HMOs. However, to prescribe an effective solution to the problem, it is important to understand the root causes of the consumer backlash. It is, after all, possible that a Patients’ Bill of Rights will do little if it is not targeted to correct what is really bothering people about HMOs.

The United States is currently entering a period in which the demand for longterm care services is growing at a particularly rapid rate; it is projected that the inflation-adjusted expenditures for long-term care will double between 1993 and 2018. As the population continues to age and become more chronically ill and disabled, the need to expand our long-term care capacity, and the long-term care options available, has become self-evident. The question is how we can meet this need in a cost-effective manner that is satisfactory to the consumer of services.

The debate surrounding the legalization of assisted suicide has been galvanized in recent years by reports of specific cases of assisted suicide, primarily involving physicians such as Kevorkian and Quill, and by impassioned pleas for legalization and assistance in suicide from individuals suffering in the throes of terminal or agonizing diseases, such as Sue Rodriguez. Media attention on criminal trials of individuals accused of assisting in a suicide has heightened public awareness of the issue. The constitutionality of criminal prohibitions on assisted suicide has been tested in various jurisdictions, and has recently been considered by the Supreme Courts of both the United States and Canada. Following two narrowly unsuccessful attempts to enact dignified death provisions by referenda in Washington and California, Oregon voters passed the first of such proposed laws in November 1994, providing for physician-assisted suicide under certain specified conditions. Attempts to introduce legislation to legalize assisted suicide in other jurisdictions have been galvanized by the success in Oregon. A model statute has been drafted by a group of law professors, philosophers and medical professionals.

The possibility of cloning human beings, although widely contemplated for several decades, became scientifically feasible in 1997 when the first mammal created through cloning procedures was born. Although the scientists who created the sheep named Dolly did not intend to apply cloning techniques to human beings, news media worldwide began predicting such an application.

In the United States, public and political outcry against the possibility of cloning human beings was loud and swift. Almost immediately, President Clinton announced a ban on federal funding of cloning research and requested the National Bioethics Advisory Commission to prepare a report evaluating the technology and making recommendations concerning its use. Several bills were introduced in Congress which prohibited federal funding and/or banned cloning in both the public and private sectors. As of yet, none of these bills have been passed.