MARCH 4, 2003

Mr. Chairman, while the rising cost of malpractice insurance is a real problem for doctors and patients alike, I must oppose the over-broad legislation that is before us today. As we discovered during a hearing just last week, not even its authors knows how far this legislation reaches beyond the issue of medical malpractice.

I have requested that my Republican colleagues schedule additional hearings so that we may better understand the far reaching impact this legislation will have on our legal system, patients, and health care providers. Yet my requests have gone unanswered, and they continue moving forward with this ill-conceived package of goodies designed to protect drug companies, HMOs and others from all sorts of shenanigans.

Dramatic increases in malpractice insurance rates are leaving doctors with few options in many regions of the country. Those who can afford to pay the increased cost of providing medical service, will. Those who cannot afford the increase are forced to assume significant personal liability, leave high-risk specialties, or leave the profession altogether. At best, health care will become more expensive for patients. At worst, in addition to high prices, patients will be denied access to care, and lifesaving treatments will not be provided.

This is a serious problem that deserves deliberate consideration. Unfortunately, the legislation before us today focuses on drastic reforms of the judicial system that extend well beyond the issue of medical malpractice. While inefficiencies in our courts may be a contributing factor to this crisis, it is by no means the only cause -- or even the single largest cause -- of the current crisis. Physicians and other medical providers deserve immediate assistance, not hollow promises that are in fact designed to protect unscrupulous corporations from their responsibilities to doctors and patients.

The provisions contained in this bill will shield HMOs, insurance companies, and drug and device manufacturers from liability. No evidence has been presented to the Committee demonstrating that these privileged industries need additional protections, yet H.R. 5 grants them a special status under the law that is unprecedented.

Moreover, these dramatic protections hurt the rights of injured patients in an equally unprecedented manner. There is a human cost to this legislation that we must not forget. While the Committee has not received testimony explaining the need to protect drug companies and HMOs, we did hear the courageous testimony of Heather Lewinski. She explained how her life has been affected by the malpractice of a plastic surgeon. The pain, suffering, fear, and trauma that Heather has confronted in her young life are real, and she should be compensated. Heather did not qualify for significant economic damages. The harm caused to her was almost exclusively non-economic in nature, but it is unquestionably great harm nonetheless.

While claiming to provide unlimited economic damages, H.R. 5 would disproportionately hurt women, seniors, and low-income families by limiting non-economic damages to $250,000. Because a significant component of economic damages is an individual’s income, such a system would disproportionately value the lives of those with high incomes over low-wage earners, stay-at-home moms, and senior citizens. For example, if the CEO’s of the very companies that this bill protects were injured, their economic damages would be worth millions upon millions of dollars. By comparison, if a stay-at-home mom were injured in an identical manner, she would have very limited economic damages awarded to her.

H.R. 5 also limits the amount of time in which an injured patient can seek just compensation to three years from the date an injury manifests itself. The concept of manifestation is not established in law nor is it clearly defined in the legislation. There are certainly circumstances when an injury could manifest itself without a patient knowing of its existence for three or more years. An illness such as HIV could manifest itself and not be discovered -- nor expected to be discovered -- by a patient for many years. This legislation would prevent that patient, and many others, from being compensated at all.

Unfortunately, my Republican colleagues are quite determined to move quickly and harshly. Their legislation reaches well beyond malpractice and offers no guarantees of assistance to providers and communities. Physicians and patients are asked to cross their fingers and hope that some of the benefits given to insurance companies and large corporations will trickle down to them. And women, seniors, and low-income families are left to pay the very real human cost of these corporate benefits. It is wrong.