Dear Speaker Boehner:
We, as members of the Health Coalition on Liability and Access (HCLA), request that you include
comprehensive medical liability reforms in any proposal to address our nation’s debt or budget
deficit. Such reforms have a long history of improving access to care and, equally important for the
purpose at hand, have been demonstrated as offering billions in savings to the American taxpayer.
As you are aware, the HCLA is a national advocacy coalition of associations and businesses
representing physicians, dentists, allied health care providers, hospitals, health care liability insurers,
employers, and health care consumers. We are dedicated to reforming our medical liability system
to increase patient safety, ensure that injured patients are compensated quickly and fairly, improve
provider-patient communications, and foster an environment for affordable and accessible medical
liability insurance. In addition to reforms to benefit patients and their healthcare providers, we seek
reforms that will improve the federal government’s budgetary imbalance.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has scored several medical liability reform proposals as
providing significant budgetary savings. These proposals include:
- A $250,000 cap on subjective, noneconomic damages (with no limit on economic damages);
- Collateral source rule reform allowing evidence of outside payments to be submitted in court;
- A ban on subrogation by certain collateral sources;
- A fee schedule for attorney contingency fees to ensure victims of negligence receive the funds they need;
- Periodic payments of future damages to protect patients’ long-term interests; and,
- A reasonable statute of limitations.
…
Read full letter here
