Obama’s Tort Reform Offer is Chump Change

As President Obama applies his full-court press to pass a national health insurance bill this month, he continues to omit a key provision necessary to increase access to healthcare: lawsuit reform.

Sure, he says he is incorporating lawsuit reform into his proposal as a good-faith gesture. But the substance of the president’s offer reveals that he is giving up nothing.

The Senate health care bill that the House will soon be asked to pass contains more than 20 different provisions creating new types of lawsuits against medical providers. A substantive, good-faith compromise would strip those provisions and remove the threat of those additional lawsuits.

The Senate bill could also override the medical liability reforms already approved by Texas and 35 other states. A substantive, good-faith compromise would clarify that nothing in the new federal legislation should be construed to pre-empt those state laws.

By contrast, the president’s offer to toss a few more nickels at studies on tort reform that specifically exclude caps on non-economic damages – the one provision already proven to work – rings hollow.

The lawsuit reforms approved by Texas voters in 2003 directly caused a dramatic, documented increase in the availability of quality healthcare. Lawsuit reform – like the health care debate – is not just about dollars; it’s about access to a doctor when you need one.

Prior to adopting omnibus lawsuit reform in 2003, Texas ranked 49th out of 50 states in doctors per citizen. One out of every five doctors was being sued each year and the premiums doctors paid for malpractice insurance, an expense required before they bought a tongue depressor, was doubling every three to four years. Doctors were leaving the practice of medicine, retiring early, and restricting their practices to avoid difficult cases. Specialists in rural and litigious parts of the state were rare.

Immediately after adopting tort reform, lawsuits against doctors dropped by half and have remained at that level. Physician applications to Texas Medical Board have set a new record high every year since and the number of physicians practicing in Texas has grown from 35,000 to 55,000 in just six years. Capital investment in hospitals and clinics is now well over $10 billion. With each new doctor comes an average of five additional jobs in related fields.

What these numbers mean to Texans is that they now have greater access to a physician, many of whom are highly trained specialists. Memorial Hermann Hospital System, for example, prior to tort reform, was able to recruit one or two pediatric sub-specialist each year. In 2008, 26 pediatric sub-specialists joined its system. For parents of ill children, tort reform means care and hope.

CHRISTUS Health, a charity care hospital system, has saved more than $100 million each year in liability costs. It has expanded its already great charity care by that amount and recently opened primary care clinics in impoverished neighborhoods. Overall, charity care in Texas has increased by $600 million annually since tort reform.

Dr. George Alexander moved to Corpus Christi one week before he saw George Rodriquez, a patient with a spinal abscess. Dr. Alexander had moved to Corpus Christi solely because of the 2003 tort reform and was the only neurosurgeon in town.

Before 2003, a patient in Rodriguez’s situation would be forced to delay treatment in order to travel to Houston. But Dr. Alexander was able to immediately operate on Rodriquez, saving both his life and quality of life.

Lawsuit reform has the faces of real people who have real need of health care. It will ensure physicians stay in the practice of medicine and are available to treat people in need of their skill and talent. Health insurance is a meaningless bundle of pages without skilled physicians and nearby hospitals.

Health care reform without meaningful lawsuit reform is an empty shell.

The Honorable Joseph M. Nixon is a Senior Fellow with the Texas Public Policy Foundation and of counsel with the Houston law firm Beirne, Maynard & Parsons, LLP. He served six terms in the Texas House of Representatives and chaired the House Committee on Civil Practices during his last two terms.