The Senate Talks Health Courts

We're pleased to spread the word about some action in the Senate. Forget the dead-in-the-water, social wedge issues. We're talking bi-partisan legislation that would create pilot projects for special health courts.  The bill (S.1337), known as the Fair and Reliable Medical Justice Act, has been introduced by Senators Michael Enzi (R-WY) and Max Baucus (D-MT).  The purpose of the bill is to restore fairness and reliability to the medical justice system by fostering alternatives to current medical tort litigation, including the creation of special healthcare courts, that promote early disclosure of health care errors and provide prompt, fair, and reasonable compensation to patients who are injured by healthcare errors.  Read more about the bill here.

Common Good—one of our strongest partners since we launched in 2005—is developing models for expert health courts based on research conducted at The Harvard School of Public Health and funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  Read more about the project here.  View the health court brochure here.

Support for health courts has been increasing every day, but Common Good needs your help.  Get the word out: 

1.         Send a note to your senators, especially if they are on the Health Committee.  Download a draft letter here in PDF or Word document format.  Click here to find the contact information for your Senator.  Click here to find out if your Senator is on the Health Committee.

2.         Notify your colleagues and friends by e-mail or fax and ask them to send letters to their senators.  Click on the envelope icon on the top right of the page to email this page.

Nice work, Common Good.

Comments

[Matt]

To any of you thinking about that "prompt, fair, and reasonable" compensation and how nice that sounds, remember that insurance industry lobbyists will be determining the meaning of each of those terms.

Take a look at the legislation they've drafted in pursuing their goals so far, and see if you think such things as periodic payments of awards, NOT adjusted for inflation, evidences the patient's best interests.

[DBR]

"Take a look at the legislation they've drafted in pursuing their goals so far, and see if you think such things as periodic payments of awards, NOT adjusted for inflation, evidences the patient's best interests."

Riiiight.....and how exactly is it in the patients' best interests to wait 3-5 years for a trial or settlement, only to have more than half of that compensation cover lawyers' fees and court costs.....? Or to know that no lawyer will take his or her cases because it might not be lucrative enough...?

[Matt]

Donna,

Please tell me how any proposal you have championed cuts administrative costs, moves cases faster, or increases the chance of a victim finding a lawyer.

Those are all valid criticisms of the current system. However, every proposal you back resolves none of those, and only succeeds in making it harder for the victim to recover and seeks to reduce that recover when they do.