Dear Chairman Goodlatte:
On behalf of the Health Coalition on Liability and Access (HCLA), we wish to thank you for
scheduling a markup of the Protecting Access to Care Act (H.R. 1215) and urge the bill’s prompt
passage through the Judiciary Committee.
As you are aware, the HCLA is a national advocacy coalition of associations and businesses
representing doctors and other health care providers, hospitals, nursing and assisted living
facilities, 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 ensure
affordable and accessible medical liability insurance. The broad alliance which makes up the
HCLA ensures that we advocate for solutions to our medical liability problems that are designed
to have the most comprehensive benefits to the entire health care community.
As introduced, the Protecting Access to Care Act achieves all of these goals. This legislation
adopts many of the reforms which have been thoroughly tested in the states and which have
proven successful in improving the medical liability climate in those states. At the same time, it
protects those states that have enacted effective reforms, and provides substantial flexibility to
adopt variations of these reforms in order to meet their unique circumstances.
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