Rounds NEWS FROM AMERICA’S BEST MEDICAL SOCIETY
most basic thing: It’s made people’s lives better.”
When an early-2003 survey showed the lawsuit epidemic had significantly reduced sick and injured Texans’ abil- ity to get the health care they need, the framers of the state’s medical liability reform plan promised things would be very different after passage of House Bill 4 and Proposition 12. A follow-up TMA survey released in September 2013 documents that medi- cal liability reform has kept its promises. The landmark law and accompanying constitutional amendment have:
• Assured good Texas physicians they can take on the most complicated ill- nesses and serious injuries without fear of facing a groundless lawsuit in return, and
The state’s decade-old tort reform law is working because it has reduced frivolous lawsuits and brought more physicians to Texas, TMA Board of Trustees Chair Carlos Cardenas, MD, said during a 10th anniversary observance in Edinburg in September.
• Attracted record numbers of new phy- sicians to the state.
Ten years later, tort reform keeps its promises
Gov. Rick Perry joined Texas Medical Association leaders in Edinburg in September to observe the 10th anniversary of the passage of tort reform in 2003. Their mes- sage was simple: The reforms have kept the promises made to Texans 10 years ago. TMA Board of Trustees Chair Carlos Cardenas, MD, said the “landmark law and accompanying constitutional amendment have assured good Texas physicians they can take on the most complicated illnesses and serious injuries without fear of fac- ing a groundless lawsuit in return. And they have attracted record numbers of new physicians to the state.” Governor Perry said he is “continually surprised some people still want to argue the case that tort reform hasn’t worked; they’re swimming upstream against a flood of hard data. … The best thing we can say about tort reform in Texas is also the
Overall, 80 percent of the Texas phy- sicians surveyed rate the current liability climate in Texas for physicians as good (51 percent) or excellent (29 percent). “My mom taught me that you’re only as good as your word,” said TMA Presi- dent Stephen L. Brotherton, MD. “We’ve kept our word. Mom would be proud. And the patients of Texas are so much better off because of it.” Log on to
http://bit.ly/18tPXnt to
read the survey. The 2003 survey demonstrated the extent of the lawsuit crisis. Because of professional liability pressures, TMA’s survey team reported at the time, half of Texas physicians had stopped provid- ing certain services to their patients in
November 2013 TEXAS MEDICINE 11
STEVE LEVINE
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