Patients First Act of 2003 - Motion to Proceed

PATIENTS FIRST ACT OF 2003—MOTION TO PROCEED

    Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the measure we are hoping to proceed to, the Patients First Act of 2003, seeks to address a major national crisis that confronts us in health care. Two weeks ago, or right before the recess, the Senate and the House acted on a major new health care proposal to modernize and preserve Medicare and to add a prescription drug benefit for our seniors. Now the Senate seeks to address another part of America's health care crisis—one the House of Representatives has already dealt with—which is the question of the rising cost of medical liability premiums, forcing physicians out of certain specialties or, in the case of young physicians, choosing not to go into such high-risk specialties as obstetrics because they know they won't be able to afford the medical malpractice premiums and still perform the service for which they have been trained.

    Last year, when we dealt with this issue, there were about 11 or 12 States that were in crisis. Now there are 19. There are only 6 of our 50 States that have no problem at all. All the rest are on the way to having a major national crisis.

    The underlying bill that we are seeking to get permission to go to—the principal sponsor is Senator Ensign of Nevada, who is here to my right and has been an active and major player in the legislation—is very similar to the measure that passed the House. It is also supported by the President of the United States. So we know that if we were to go forward with a bill similar to this, it could get a Presidential signature and we would be well on our way to dealing with this enormous problem that is beginning to deny patients care all across our country.

    So when the Senate has an opportunity to vote, I hope Members will vote to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed so we can go to the bill and begin to address this incredibly serious national problem.

    I commend Senator Ensign for his leadership on this issue. His State has certainly been one of those that has had an enormous crisis and they are trying to deal with it at the State level. He can address that. But the point is that this is a national problem that needs to be dealt with by the National Government.

    That is what we are seeking to do today: to get an opportunity to get on to the bill and deal with this extraordinary health care crisis that we have in the country.

    I will have more to say later in the morning and particularly just prior to the vote.

    I yield the floor.

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    Mr. McCONNELL. The vote we are about to have is not about the details of the underlying bill, it is about whether we think there is a medical malpractice crisis in America and whether we ought to do something about it. If we were able to get on the bill, it would obviously be open to amendment and we would see how the Senate felt, that some issue ought to be addressed.

    The Senator from Nevada, the floor leader on this subject, says 19 States are currently in crisis and 25 are on the way to crisis, while only 6 of our 50 States are OK as far as the price of medical malpractice premiums not driving physicians out of work is concerned.

    It has been incredibly stated on the other side of the aisle by numerous speakers that this crisis has nothing to do with runaway judgments. I don't know how you can reach that conclusion. The people at CBO and the Department of Health and Human Services and the Joint Economic Committee, insurance commissioners, actuaries, all believe this crisis is related to runaway judgments.

    California, which we keep referring to, has the model system after which the underlying bill has been modeled. My friends on the other side of the aisle think this crisis has been created by something else. They have been suggesting it is bad returns from the stock market or insurance company collusion, or a cadre of quacks who are causing problems for medicine. I don't know whether all of that has made some contribution, but we know there is one solution that works, and that is the California approach. That is what is in the underlying bill.

    We ought to at least recognize this is a national crisis, a national problem that ought to be dealt with at the national level. We will have an opportunity to find out whether the Senate agrees with that shortly when we vote on cloture on the motion to proceed. I hope the Senate will give us an opportunity to get to the underlying bill. It would then be open to all kinds of amendments and we could begin to proceed, as we normally do in the Senate, in crafting legislation to deal with national problems.

    We urge our colleagues to vote for cloture on the motion to proceed.