Sacramento Bee

The HMO-bashing Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights is offering supporters of its cause a way to express themselves via bumper sticker.

The Santa Monica-based group issued this comment following the U.S. Senate’s failure recently to pass a patient’s bill of rights: a bumper sticker emblazoned, “G.O.P. + H.M.O = R.I.P.”

The sticker alludes to a shortfall of Republican support for the bill; had one more Republican voted “aye,” the bill, which already had passed in the House of Representatives, would have gone to the president’s desk. Democrats in the Senate have vowed to reintroduce the patient’s bill of rights.

The foundation’s advocacy director, Jamie Court, is offering free bumper stickers in hopes of persuading one more GOP senator to support the measure. Bee staff writers Jean P. Fisher, Mark Glover and Lisa Rapaport contributed items for this column.