Medical Liability, HR 5 - Special Order
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to protest the increase of medical liability costs and an environment where it has become all too commonplace to name the innocent in lawsuits, drive good doctors from the practice of medicine, and play games with the health care of vulnerable patients.
This crisis has reached my home state of Texas, and even reached the cities and towns I represent in Congress.
For instance, Dr. John Marsden, a vascular surgeon in my district, must pay $6,600 per month for his medical liability insurance coverage.
That is nearly $80,000 a year just to purchase his insurance to stay in business.
I don’t think we would find it acceptable if other types of businesses had to absorb this kind of overhead.
After being named in numerous unfounded lawsuits where there has been no affirmative finding in favor of the plaintiff, Dr. Marsden notes if he sustains another increase in his medical liability rates, he will be forced to leave his medical practice.
If he ceases his surgical practice, the City of Lewisville and the outlying areas would no longer have ready access to a vascular surgeon, severely impacting the health of Dr. Marsden’s elderly or institutionalized patients who would then have to travel longer distances over bumpy roads to receive health care.
Another doctor in my district, Dr. Hatton, has faced an equally similar situation.
Dr. Bill Hatton is a surgeon at the Medical Center of Lewisville.
In 1994 he performed a gall bladder operation on a pregnant woman and at the time found she also had appendicitis—the appropriate operation was done and the woman was sent home to recover from her surgery.
4 weeks later, the same woman was admitted to the hospital, exhibiting a high fever.
It was feared that she could be suffering from peritonitis—an inflammation of the tissue (peritoneum) that lines the abdominal cavity and covers the abdominal organs.
If nothing were done, the mother could die—however, in trying to save the mother, the child’s life could be put in jeopardy.
Surgery was performed on the woman but they were unable to find a problem.
The child was delivered but sadly died of extreme prematurity—the mother’s condition improved within 24 hours.
After all these tragic events, an attorney sued Dr. Hatton on the behalf of the shocked and saddened family of this young woman.
Every practitioner involved in the case was sued, but Dr. Hatton was the ultimate target.
The case went to trial, and eventually Dr. Hatton prevailed.
What the attorney should have recognized at the point depositions were taken, had he not been blinded by greed, was the fact that in this tragic and sad case, there was no negligent party.
However, that attorney continued to drag Dr. Hatton through a long and arduous legal battle and delayed the time that the family could take to heal.
This was a costly, time consuming, and emotional process for both Dr. Hatton and the family of the young woman—all for the agenda of a third party.
There are thousands of other doctors with similar stories.
This crisis is at a breaking point.
Doctors are being driven from their practices, leaving areas of the nation with serious health professional shortages.
This debate is not a tournament of greed that pits doctors against trial lawyers.
The legal environment in which doctors must work is lopsided to favor a very narrow special interest group—trial lawyers.
Patients are losing access to the specialized care they need because doctors are being driven out of business.
Doctors are not able to provide affordable care to patients without fear of being named in a lawsuit.
Trial lawyers prey on vulnerable patients and doctors rarely in pursuit of justice but frequently in pursuit of material gain.
Nearly every state in the country now faces this crisis.
A national solution is needed now.
HR 5 will immediately address this problem by providing the national solution that is needed.
