Bush Pushes for Tort Reform and Cap Limit - February 2005

Tort Reform Legislation: The Bush administration and a Congress more heavily Republican since last year’s elections are strongly supporting medical malpractice tort reform legislation. The President is urging Congress to reintroduce a bill that was passed by the House but defeated by the Senate last year. The bill would limit noneconomic damage awards to $250,000, limit punitive damage awards, place limits on the time allowed to injured patients to file a lawsuit and establish a fee schedule for lawyers’ contingency fees. A provision would also provide liability protection for pharmaceutical firms. In recent years the House has approved a bill limiting lawsuits on medical malpractice claims seven times; each was defeated in the Senate.

Other Proposals to Deal with the Crisis: In early January 2005, experts commissioned by the Bush Administration to study medical malpractice litigation said state authorities should do a better job disciplining incompetent doctors. They said the public needed to be protected against substandard practice by physicians and that improved policing of medical treatment would decrease the number of malpractice lawsuits, adding that state medical boards often have insufficient resources to handle the thousands of complaints they receive each year and that the process of removing the license of an incompetent doctor is often long and costly. The researchers, from the Urban Institute and the National Health Law and Policy Resource Center at the University of Iowa College of Law, will release the results of their study this spring.