WASHINGTON — The Oba ma administration and key congressional Democrats are taking a hard look at the nation’s medical malpractice system as part of a broader health care overhaul.
“It’s an essential piece for there to be enduring reform, reform that will stick and will get a significant bipartisan vote in the United States Senate,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who has a bipartisan health bill that includes incentives to get states to enact malpractice reforms.
Already the trial lawyers’ lobby is preparing to distribute a brief on Capitol Hill casting medical malpractice as a small cost in the overall health system. The brief cites an Institute of Medicine finding that as many as 98,000 deaths in the U.S. each year result from medical error.
Trial lawyers and their Democratic Senate allies helped kill attempts under the Bush administration to cap punitive and pain-and-suffering payouts in malpractice lawsuits. The Congressional Budget Office says such caps could save the federal government $4.3 billion from 2010 to 2019.
