Health Care

Floor Speech

Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Speaker, last week, the Democrat leadership introduced their ever-evolving health care bill, a patchwork of deals cut to garner enough votes to secure a political victory.

In this bill, the trial lawyers win big. My home State of California has enacted commonsense trial practice reforms that have lowered medical liability costs for our residents. Since the enactment of reforms, malpractice rates in California have grown at one-third the rate of States without malpractice reforms, a savings which is passed on to patients. However, this bill would force States to repeal effective liability reforms in favor of unlimited payoffs for trial lawyers or States will lose out on Federal funds for their health care systems.

Health care reform must not reward frivolous lawsuits that drive up the cost of health care to the detriment of doctors, health care professionals and, most importantly, patients. Let's prove that Congress is more serious about the health of the American people than it is about the financial health of trial lawyers.

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