Dear Congressman Hudson:
On behalf of the Health Coalition on Liability and Access (HCLA) and other interested
stakeholders, we wish to thank you for your leadership role in introducing the Accessible Care
by Curbing Excessive lawSuitS (ACCESS) Act, H.R. 1704.
As you are aware, the HCLA is a national advocacy coalition of associations and businesses
representing physicians and other health care providers, hospitals, nursing and assisted living
facilities, health care liability companies, 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 coverage. 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 ACCESS Act achieves all of these goals. This legislation embraces those reforms which
have been thoroughly tested in the states and which have proven successful in improving the
medical liability climate in those states. It also adopts newer reforms which can help reduce the
number of meritless claims that are filed. At the same time, it protects those states that have
enacted effective reforms, and provides substantial flexibility for them to adopt variations of
these reforms in order to meet their unique circumstances.
Federal medical liability reforms will return fairness and equity to our medical liability system
for patients and providers alike. In addition, as noted by the Congressional Budget Office, these
reforms will bring significant budgetary savings to aid in the efforts to reduce our national
deficit.
Again, we thank you for your leadership in sponsoring this important legislation and offer our
endorsement of the ACCESS Act. If there is any way we may be of assistance to you, please do
not hesitate to contact us.
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