Sidebar: Health-Care Legislation Takes A Back Seat

Despite determined behind-the-scenes negotiations between the Bush Administration and Senate Democrats at the start of this year, Beltway insiders say the Patient's Bill of Rights has little chance of passing Congress and getting signed into law in 2002. Moviegoers may have been absorbed by the recent Denzel Washington film John Q and its scathing if exaggerated attack on the health-insurance industry, but Washington's attention has been on other matters, principally the Enron meltdown and its implication for the security of working Americans' retirement savings plans.