Sports Medicine Licensure Clarity Act of 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Tonight, millions of Americans, including myself, will tune in to the College Football Playoff National Championship between the University of Alabama and Clemson University. As with any college or professional competition, both teams will have healthcare practitioners traveling with them to the game.

Unfortunately, many States do not provide legal protection for sports medicine practitioners who travel with these athletes since they are not licensed to practice medicine in the secondary State. The Sports Medicine Licensure Clarity Act, which I introduced with Mr. Richmond of Louisiana, would ensure that sports medicine professionals can provide high-quality and timely health care to athletes without having to worry about potential liability when traveling across State lines with their teams.

The nature of sports medicine professionals' jobs require them to frequently travel between States so that athletes can receive proper care the moment they are injured. However, providers are at great personal and professional risk because medical liability insurance does not cover costs for lawsuits related to care provided in States in which they are not licensed. It is not a reasonable solution to require practitioners to become licensed in every State where their teams will play during a given season.

This came to my attention, and I talked to a friend of mine who is an emergency room physician in Auburn, Alabama. He travels with Auburn University. At the time, a few years ago, they were playing in what was then the BCS game. So here is a friend of mine, a physician, traveling with Auburn to the Rose Bowl in California.

Fortunately, it didn't happen, but what if he had to take care of Cam Newton, who was the quarterback at the time? First of all, the players want physicians that know them taking care of them, but think of the liability because he was in California when he is licensed to practice in Alabama and if something had gone wrong to as valuable an athlete as Cam Newton.

It is important that we do this. It is just pure common sense. It is very bipartisan. My friend Mr. Richmond and I have worked on this together.

I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this commonsense, bipartisan bill to provide clarity for sports professionals performing their duties when caring for athletes. We passed this bill quickly last session. We are going to do it quickly again this Congress and give time for the other body to address this.

I would personally like to thank my longtime legislative director, who just took another job. She worked tirelessly on this. As simple and as commonsense as this bill is, there are a lot of details when you are trying to define details about going across jurisdictions and State lines. I wish Megan Jackson well in her new endeavor.

I urge my colleagues to support this measure.

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