Medical Care Access Protection Act of 2006

MEDICAL CARE ACCESS PROTECTION ACT OF 2006--MOTION TO PROCEED -- (Senate - May 08, 2006)

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, today the Senate will vote on a couple of cloture motions dealing with medical malpractice reform. We will have a debate later this week on small business health plans. This is a week in which we have an opportunity to address what is probably one of the most important, if not the most important, domestic policy issues that we will deal with in the foreseeable future; that is, access to health care for more Americans, more affordable health care for more Americans.

These issues are not new to the Congress. In fact, as a Member of the House of Representatives, I had the opportunity to vote numerous times on medical malpractice reform, on small business health plans to allow more people to have access to health care by joining larger groups, thereby driving down the cost of insurance and providing coverage to some of the 45 million people who currently are not covered.

Estimates are that as small business health plans pass, we will have 11 million more Americans with health insurance, making a big dent in the ranks of the uninsured. In the time since I first came to Congress in 1996, in the last decade, there have been 13 different votes in the Congress: There have been five votes on medical malpractice reform; there have been eight votes on small business health plans. In those cases, the House of Representatives has acted. There have been majority votes coming out of the House. That legislation would then come to the Senate where it would be obstructed, filibustered, and ultimately would die.

I submit to my colleagues that these are both measures for which there is majority support in the Congress. If you look at the House, they have passed it repeatedly. If you look at the Senate, if we had a vote today and we had to get 51 votes or a simple majority in the Senate, we would be able to pass medical malpractice reform. We would also be able to pass small business health plans. The other side has repeatedly denied us an opportunity to have an up-or-down vote on these particular issues. That is wrong. It is wrong for a lot of reasons, but it is wrong, most importantly, because it is hurting the welfare of Americans who desperately need access to health care and need the cost of health care brought down.

Today when we vote on medical malpractice reform, we will be addressing an issue that affects the well-being of all Americans because in one way or another, when physicians have to deal with escalating premiums for liability insurance, those costs ultimately get passed on to all of us. If you don't believe that, look at the statistics.

In 2002, the Health and Human Services issued an update on the medical liability crisis. It found that the direct cost of medical liability coverage and the indirect cost of defensive medicine increased the amount the Federal Government must pay for Federal health programs such as Medicare and Medicaid by $22.5 billion a year.

Additionally, a January 2006 Pricewaterhouse Coopers study entitled ``The Factors Fueling Rising Health Care Costs,'' concluded that medical liability and defensive medicine accounted for 10 percent of the increase in the rising cost of health insurance premiums.

The median liability jury award in medical liability cases almost tripled between 1997 and 2004. In 2003, the GAO found:

Losses on medical malpractice claims--which make up the largest part of insurers' costs--appear to be the primary driver of rate increases in the long run.

With these statistics and findings of not only the GAO but numerous independent studies, it is easy to see that it is time for Congress to address the medical liability crisis. S. 22 and S. 23 provide needed and sensible medical liability reform. Based on the Texas stacked cap model for noneconomic damages, these pieces of legislation allow up to $750,000 for noneconomic damages and unlimited awards for economic damages. Additionally, plaintiffs may recover punitive damages twice the amount of economic damages, or $250,000, whichever is greater.

S. 22 and S. 23 also maximize patient recovery by limiting the fees attorneys may recover on a contingency basis. My State of South Dakota currently has a cap of $500,000 for noneconomic damages. S. 22 and S. 23 respect States rights and do not preempt noneconomic damage caps in place, not only in South Dakota but in 25 other States as well. It is time the obstruction in the Senate come to an end and that we put patients before lawyers and allow a straight up-or-down vote on S. 22 and S. 23. Obstructing a vote on medical liability reform jeopardizes every American's access to quality health care and raises the cost for individual taxpayers as well as for State and Federal Governments. This is especially true in rural States such as South Dakota where there is only one licensed physician for every 450 residents.

I believe it is high time the Senate show the American people that Congress understands their concerns about access to and the cost of health care. Pass S. 22 and S. 23 and do

what I believe a majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives support; that is, to address the rising cost of health care by putting reasonable limits in place, many of which have been adopted and are successfully working in States throughout the country. It is time to end the obstruction and allow these measures to be voted on. I hope my colleagues will vote that way when the cloture votes come up.

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