Medical Care Access Protection Act of 2006--Motion to Proceed

MEDICAL CARE ACCESS PROTECTION ACT OF 2006--MOTION TO PROCEED

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I appreciated the opportunity to listen to the statement of my colleague from Utah and hearing of the effects that medical malpractice liability costs are having in his particular State. I think all of us in this body could stand on the Senate floor and discuss what is happening in our respective States and in our respective regions as we look at how medical malpractice issues are affecting access to care and access to quality physicians.

Truly, across the Nation, emergency departments are losing staff. Critical services are being cut and even trauma units being closed. One in seven obstetricians has stopped delivering babies. Countless surgeons are no longer performing high-risk procedures. You have to stop and ask the question: What has happened? What has caused this breakdown in our Nation's medical liability system?

Skyrocketing medical liability rates are forcing so many of our doctors across the country to stop practicing medicine. It is the millions of patients around the country who suffer when this happens.

In the State of Alaska, where our patients, my constituents, live throughout some 586,000 square miles, the situation is chilling. It is a crisis. We have 25 to 30 percent fewer physicians than our population needs. In fact, Alaska has one of the smallest numbers of physicians per capita in the United States. We need a minimum of 500 more doctors just to be at the national average of physicians per capita.

An American Medical News article recently declared Alaska's precarious situation by stating that ``Alaska has long ranked among the worst states in terms of physician supply.'' Just recently, we learned about new deployments with one of our medical units in the Anchorage area coming out of Elmendorf. We have had a recent deployment of Alaskan military physicians and health care providers, and this month we are losing over 60 health care providers. So the few civilian physicians we have in the area are being asked to absorb some 5,400 military and military families into their already strained practices.

In certain of the physician specialties, the shortages there are at even worse levels.

For example, we all know Alaska is a huge State, a State larger than Texas, California, and Montana combined. Envision that area. We have lost half of our internists. Over one-half of the internist population is now gone from the State of Alaska. And, in Alaska, a State where we have the highest rate of traumatic brain injury in the Nation, we have three neurosurgeons for the entire State. Where do you go? You have to go outside, you go to Seattle. But you have to leave the State for that medical care.

In Nome, a town in western Alaska where my mother was born, there are no anesthesiologists. Nome is the regional hub in the Northwest. There are no anesthesiologists. So if you are a woman who is delivering a baby and the condition requires that a C-section be performed, you can't have the C-section done in Nome because there is no anesthesiologist. You have to get on a jet and fly an hour and a half to Anchorage. These are the situations we deal with in Alaska on a daily basis.

Many of these physicians were forced out of practice because they could no longer afford their medical liability premiums. Our physician shortage crisis was a key reason that medical liability reform was so important to Alaska. It was last May, as the legislature concluded its business, as they are doing this week, that the Alaska State Legislature passed a medical liability reform bill. Like the bills currently before the Senate, the Alaska bill fully compensates a patient for all quantifiable damages, such as lost wages and all medical and future medical costs. And like the legislation we have before us, the Alaska law places reasonable limitations on unquantifiable, noneconomic damages.

The American Academy of Actuaries has stated that placing limitations on unquantifiable, noneconomic damages is ``imperative in stabilizing the physician professional liability insurance marketplace.''

Our hope with the new legislation is that the Alaska law will provide equitable and predictable settlements in medical injury cases resulting in a more stable, professional liability insurance marketplace and, most importantly, it will help us with the recruitment of physicians to fill the chronic shortage.

I am happy to report that our medical liability reform does appear to be working. Ketchikan General Hospital, for the first time in years, has been able to recruit two new physicians. We have an internist and a general surgeon. For the first time also in years, I am told, their medical liability premiums have not increased.

Additionally, the Mat-Suu Valley has been able to recruit a cardiologist and Anchorage has finally been able to recruit a reconstructive surgeon. Both of these physicians fled their states that were in ``liability crisis'' and moved to Alaska where reform has been enacted. This is good news.

However, this is an issue that has national implications. That is why we in Washington must act now. The bills before the Senate, S. 22 and S. 23, are based on a fair and commonsense approach that passed in the State of Texas. As a result of the Texas law, physicians are returning to that State, particularly in the underserved specialties and counties. Insurance premiums to protect against frivolous lawsuits have declined dramatically, with the State's largest carrier reporting declines of up to 22 percent and other carriers reducing premiums by an average of 13 percent. The number of lawsuits filed against doctors has been cut almost in half.

Too many lives around the Nation are threatened or lost because good, quality physicians are forced out of their practice. A majority of the American public supports medical liability reform and ending lawsuit abuse. It is time that the Senate passed effective medical liability reform. I am pleased we are at that juncture today.

I see the chairman of the HELP Committee. He has done a great job on so many of these issues.

I yield the floor.

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