Maryland has aggressively regulated managed care, and the state regulations, though different from the new federal standards, protect patients at least as well, Ms. Chang said.
Mr. Daschle said his first move would be to bring up legislation to regulate managed care -- most particularly a bill sponsored by Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John McCain that Mr. Bush opposes.
The ideas being discussed by Mr. Bush and Mr. Norwood could fracture the coalition of employers and insurers opposing federal legislation to regulate managed health care.
Congress has been stymied for years over how to regulate managed health care, in particular over how to hold H.M.O.'s accountable for faulty decisions about treatment.
Senators in both parties noted that Mr. Daschle could put on the floor measures that the Republicans had bottled up, like a bill to regulate managed health care.
In the last six years, while Congress has been debating legislation to regulate managed health care, most states have adopted laws to do so.
Another lobbying powerhouse, the Health Benefits Coalition, which has fought Democrats' efforts to regulate managed care, calls itself "one of the largest employer-based health care coalitions ever formed," with a membership list including major business trade groups and the insurance industry.
They hit Mr. Bush hard on the environment and criticized as half-measures his proposals to regulate managed health care and provide a Medicare prescription drug benefit for the neediest elderly.
The Republican, Representative Charlie Norwood, a Georgia dentist, plans to make his announcement on Wednesday, just a day before a group of senators will meet at the White House to hammer out a compromise on legislation to regulate managed health care and define patients' rights.
They said they worried that in the guise of a patients' rights bill, the insurance industry would secure more protections for itself to stave off the impact of recent developments in courts and state legislatures that are trying to regulate managed health care.
