Dear Speaker Ryan:
On behalf of the Health Coalition on Liability and Access (HCLA) and other interested
stakeholders, we wish to thank you for scheduling a floor vote on the Protecting Access to Care
Act (H.R. 1215) and urge the bill’s passage.
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.
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 state
authority by applying its provisions only in cases involving healthcare provided via the
expenditure of federal funds, and provides substantial flexibility for states to adopt variations of
these reforms in order to meet their unique circumstances.
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