11.   In fact, he said that when he goes to court, he fashions his legal arguments for the appeals board.

12.   It has since been amended to set up a separate appeals board.

13.   It would give patients the right to sue their health plan insurers, choose their doctors and appeal health plan decisions to an external appeals board.

14.   Occasionally, the decision of the judge is challenged all the way to the appeals board.

15.   President Bill Clinton last week endorsed recommendations by an advisory panel that would ask insurers to surrender some control of health-coverage decisions to an independent appeals board.

16.   Sweeney asked the appeals board to reconsider, which it did.

17.   The appeals board cited a number of reasons for its decision.

18.   The appeals board has now reversed that ruling.

19.   The appeals board is expected to act quickly on the matter.

20.   The Ashcroft plan adopts a system of streamlined, single-judge rulings that have been recently tested by the appeals board.