HEALTHY VISION 2020 I FAIR CIVIL JUSTICE SYSTEM SECTION 6
Protect and Promote a Fair Civil Justice System
In our generation, Texas has taken no more important step to strengthen our health care delivery system than passing the 2003 medical liability reforms. The 2003 law swiftly ended an epidemic of lawsuit abuse, brought thousands of sorely needed new physicians to Texas, and encouraged the state’s shell-shocked physicians to return to caring for patients with high-risk diseases and injuries. As recently reported in The New York Times,82
Because of liability reform, good physicians are flocking to
however, tort reform is a never-
ending political and legislative maneuver in Texas. We cannot relax our guard against direct attacks on the 2003 law, attempts to weaken the Texas Medical Board, nor cynical schemes to turn Texans’ final days into lawsuit battlegrounds.
Preserve Texas’ landmark liability reforms
In 2003, the Texas Legislature passed sweeping liability reforms to combat health care lawsuit abuse, reverse skyrocketing professional liability insurance premiums, and ensure Texans’ access to high-quality medical care. The centerpiece of those reforms was a $750,000 stacked cap on noneconomic damages assessed against physicians and health care facilities (hospital system, nursing home, and such) in a liability judgment. There is no cap on economic damages. Texas voters then approved Proposition 12, a constitutional amendment that ratified the legislature’s authority to impose these important reforms.
The reforms have worked. They’ve lived up to their promise. Sick and injured Texans have more physicians to deliver the care they need, particularly in high-risk specialties like emergency medicine, obstetrics, neurosurgery, and pediatric intensive care. Physicians also have benefited from much lower liability insurance rates and fewer non-meritorious lawsuit filings.
60 TEXAS MEDICINE December 2012
Texas from other states. Since passing the medical liability reforms in 2003, Texas has gained more than 28,000 new physicians licensed to practice in the state.
Using the most conservative figure available, Texas has added enough direct patient care physicians since 2003 to provide 10.5 million more patient visits in 2011 than likely would have occurred without liability reform.83
The number of obstetricians in rural Texas has grown 31 percent since the passage of Proposition 12, nearly three times faster than the state’s rural population growth. Nine rural counties that had no obstetrician in 2003 now have one. Compared with pre-reform, 16 counties that had no cardiologists now have one, 11 now have a general surgeon, and four now have a neurosurgeon.84
The special emergency care provisions of the law have saved lives by helping guarantee Texas patients have access to critical and timely care in the emergency department. Forty counties that had no emergency medicine physician in 2003 now do. Thirty-two of the 40 counties are rural.85
While Texas leads the nation in medical liability reform legislation, some would like to see the law weakened and/or destroyed. Ever since 2003, adversaries have tried to discredit the reforms
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