After some months of speculation on whether President Obama would include federal tort reform in his promised plan for overhauling the nation's health care system, it now appears that California-like solutions to the problem of high medical costs are not being contemplated.
"I'm not advocating caps on malpractice awards, which I personally believe can be unfair to people who have been wrongfully harmed," Obama told delegates at the American Medical Association on June 15. The driving component of California's landmark legislation, the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act of 1975 is a $250,000 limit on non-economic damages awarded in a medical professional liability trial or arbitration.
The president did acknowledge the need to reduce defensive medicine (i.e., tests and procedures ordered in an attempt to prevent lawsuits), which has been described as a significant cost nationwide. "Doctors feel like they are constantly looking over their shoulders for fear of lawsuits," Obama told the AMA. But instead of limiting awards, which has proven effective in reducing medical professional liability costs and thus increasing patient access to care in California, the president encouraged "broader use of evidence-based guidelines."
"Replicating best practices. Incentivizing excellence. Closing cost disparities. Any legislation sent to my desk that does not achieve these goals does not earn the title of reform," Obama told the doctors at the Chicago meeting.
As a large number of parties engage in addressing the nation's health care delivery system, finding a solution that reduces unmeritorious lawsuits -- and the defensive medicine they promote -- will remain one of their core challenges.
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Gordon Ownby is general counsel of the Cooperative of American Physicians, Inc., www.cap-mpt.com, and can be reached at gownby@cap-mpt.com.