On January 19, 1999, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Co-Chair of the Senate Cancer Coalition, and Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) introduced legislation to protect women from being forced out of hospitals by insurance companies only hours after undergoing breast cancer surgery, a practice known as "drive-through mastectomies."

The Women's Health and Cancer Rights Act of 1999 protects the rights of breast cancer and other cancer patients by limiting the power of insurance companies to interfere with a doctor's recommendations for treatment or hospital stays.

A similar bill was introduced in the last Congress by Senators Feinstein, Snowe and Alfonse D'Amato. A portion of that bill, requiring health plans to pay for breast reconstruction, became law as part of the FY 1999 Omnibus Appropriations Bill, but other major issues have not been resolved.

"A diagnosis of cancer, or any life-threatening disease, is a nightmare we all live in fear of for ourselves or our loved ones," Senator Feinstein said. "The last thing patients need is a health care system that is even more of a nightmare. Yet, the stories I am hearing from many women when it comes to being treated for breast cancer are simply horrifying ."

"The Women's Health and Cancer Rights Act will force insurance companies to leave medical decision-making to doctors and their patients. It is long past time for Congress to send a strong message to insurance companies. Medical decisions must be made by medical professionals, not anonymous insurance clerks."

The Women's Health and Cancer Rights Act of 1999 would:

•For breast cancer, require insurance plans to cover hospital stays as determined by the attending physician, in consultation with the patient, to be medically appropriate. It does not prescribe a fixed number of days but leaves the length of hospital stay up to the treating physician.

•For breast cancer, require insurance plans to provide notice to plan subscribers of these requirements.

•For all cancers, prohibit insurance plans form linking financial or other incentives to a physician's provision of care.

•For all cancers, require plans to cover second opinions by specialists to confirm or refute a diagnosis.

"After a mastectomy, patients must cope with the pain from surgery, with drainage tubes and with psychological loss – the trauma of amputation. These patients need medical care from trained professionals, medical care that they cannot provide themselves at home. A woman fighting for her life and her dignity should not also be saddled with a battle with her health insurance plan. Two California women have shared their real-life experiences with me:

Nancy Couchot, age 60, of Newark, California, wrote me that she had a modified radical mastectomy on November 4, 1996, at 11:30 am and was released only 5 hours later. She could not walk and the hospital staff did not help her even walk to the bathroom.

Victoria Berck, of Los Angeles, wrote that she had a mastectomy and lymph node removal at 7:30 am on November 13, 1996, and was released from the hospital 7 hours later. She was given instructions how to empty two drains attached to her body and sent home.

"The need for this legislation is clear as many studies assert that hospital lengths of stay for mastectomy are decreasing and more of these surgeries are being done on an outpatient basis. As one of these women told me, 'No civilized country in the world has mastectomy as an outpatient procedure.' I could not agree more."

In 1998, one in every eight American women were diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, and 44,000 died from the disease. There are 2.6 million U.S. women living with breast cancer today. In California in 1998, 17,600 women were diagnosed with breast cancer, and 4,300 died, according to the American Cancer Society.