Most people love to hate lawyers. How about all those mean lawyer jokes? For example: What do you do when you see a lawyer buried up to his neck in sand? If you don’t know the answer, you’re not missing anything.

President George W. Bush plays on this hatred by threatening to veto the patients’ bill of rights bill because, he says, he doesn’t want to encourage lawsuits and to enrich lawyers. But he overlooks one thing: A lot of people have come to hate health maintenance organizations even more than they hate lawyers.

Actually, two things. The Constitution guarantees, through its own little Bill of Rights, all Americans their day in court. For that guarantee to mean anything, all Americans must have access to knowledgeable and skilled legal representation. For that access to be more than theoretical for Americans of modest incomes, contingency-based fees, in which the attorney shares in a monetary judgment, are necessary. The attorney takes a risk and if the judgment is large and is upheld on appeal, he or she will enjoy a substantial reward. That’s capitalism.

No matter how much we may dislike lawyers, they perform a particularly essential function in the ever consolidating and increasingly wealthy world of managed health care. If your HMO turns down a medical procedure and won’t listen to your appeal, an effective and legitimate recourse, the only recourse, may be to take the HMO to court.

Thanks to an effective compromise authored by Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, the Senate version provides ample protection against these lawsuits to employers that provide health coverage. Other amendments cap lawyers’ fees, restrict class-action lawsuits and address other legitimate concerns.

Mr. Bush tries to back up his objections by claiming that the “lawsuit happy” America he sees already litigates too much and that the patients’ bill of rights will result in soaring health care costs and fewer people with health insurance. This ignores the aforementioned constitutional protection, the ugly truth that health care costs already have soared and lots of people have lost coverage without this legislation, and, perhaps most interestingly, the fact that some of the more enlightened HMOs have adopted more patient-friendly practices in advance (or, under the threat) of the bill. If the president is to persist in his opposition, he needs better material. And that’s no joke.