This legislation required a 60-vote supermajority for passage.
The Legislation:
The Medical Care Access Protection Act places various restrictions on the legal rights of people harmed by medical negligence or malpractice. The Act imposes a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages from any one health care provider or institution and a $500,000 cap on all damages. The legislation also limits the amount an injured patient can pay his or her lawyer on a contingency basis, imposes a new statute of limitations on medical malpractice claims, restricts punitive damages, and allows damage awards to be paid over time. The legislation eliminates the “collateral source rule” which ensured that providers and institutions responsible for malpractice or negligence paid for the victim’s care, rather than the victim’s own insurance. It also shields health care providers from liability for prescribing or dispensing dangerous drugs or medical devices if they were approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Finally, the Act establishes qualifications for the expert witnesses whose testimony may be used in a medical malpractice case and requires courts to penalize the filing of frivolous lawsuits.
The Middle-Class Position:
The Middle Class Opposes. The middle class endorses a “no” vote on the procedural issue and also opposes the substance of this bill. The Medical Care Access Protection Act tries to lower the runaway cost of health care by limiting the rights of patients and their families to seek legal recourse if they are killed or injured by medical negligence or malpractice. Unfortunately, the bill would do little to bring down costs – according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, total malpractice costs account for less than 2 percent of the nation’s health care expenditures – but it would impede the ability of injured middle-class patients to retain a lawyer and receive just compensation for their injuries. Current and aspiring middle-class Americans deserve high quality medical care. Yet too often hospitals, health care providers, and nursing homes make preventable mistakes that harm patients’ health and well-being. According to the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine, 44,000 and 98,000 Americans are killed and 300,000 are injured by medical errors in hospitals every year. Another IOM study found 1.5 million medication errors occur every year in American hospitals, adding $3.5 billion in medical costs to the medical system, and between $17 billion and $29 billion per year in total costs to society—including medical expenses, lost income, lost household productivity, and physical disability. By reducing the potential damages payable in lawsuits, this bill not only restricts the amount injured patients can recover when they are harmed by these errors, but also diminishes the incentives for hospitals and nursing homes not to cut corners on patient care and safety, resulting in worse medical care for all patients.
From the Experts:
“[Our organization recently profiled] ordinary Americans whose lives were unnecessarily shortened and whose last days were spent in excruciating pain because of neglect or abuse in a nursing home. Most of them developed deep pressure sores, a preventable and often deadly result of neglect. Some had limbs amputated, and others died from infection... The residents’ families filed civil lawsuits because it was the only way they could obtain justice for a mother or father who was severely mistreated. Most of these families could not bring a lawsuit if S. 22 became law because it would severely limit non-economic damages, the only compensation available for the pain and suffering of an elderly, non-wage-earning American.” –Alice H. Hedt, Executive Director, The National Citizens’ Coalition for Nursing Home Reform (May 4, 2006)
“[The bill’s supporters] are stretching the meaning of the English language and demonstrating contempt for ordinary citizens by styling a blatant attack on injured patients’ rights as a way to improve access to health care. These dangerous bills are no more than cynical ploys designed to boost votes from the medical lobby and insurers in an election year, not a sincere attempt to make health care more affordable or safer.” –Joan Claybrook, President, Public Citizen (May 4, 2006)
Beyond this Bill:
Malpractice suits account for only a minute proportion of medical costs. Legislation to extend health care coverage to the uninsured or lower the costs of prescription drugs would address the problem of unaffordable health care far more directly and effectively. Meanwhile, if doctors have difficulty coping with the high rates charged for medical malpractice insurance, legislation should target that problem directly. For example, Congress should encourage states to regulate the rates charged by insurance companies. Legislators should oppose any bill that purports to solve largely unrelated problems by limiting citizens' access to the civil justice system.
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