New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s surprising push for tort reform came to an end Sunday night. The latest New York budget plan eliminates the proposed $250,000 “cap on non-economic damages for medical malpractice awards” that would have saved the state an estimated $384 million. Cuomo, a Democrat, abandoned the plan even after he accepted the Medicaid Redesign Team’s proposal. The setback leaves New York’s blundering Medicaid program unreformed and according to Mississippi Governor Hailey Barbour, no meaningful changes can be made to until someone in the Governor’s Mansion follows through …
It’s long been established that part of controlling rising health care spending in the United States will mean enacting meaningful medical malpractice, or “tort”, reform. Though tort reform is not a silver bullet to creating savings, it is one of many changes vital to containing patients’ medical costs. Unfortunately, in passing the mammoth Obamacare, Congress and the president failed to take tort reform seriously, leaving out any serious provisions to encourage states to reform their medical malpractice laws. Instead, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act threw an illusory bone …
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esQTK-oSZXw[/youtube] In 2004 Governor Barbour passed comprehensive tort reform legislation in Mississippi. The state’s notorious reputation for “jackpot justice” has never recovered. In a recent op-ed Barbour wrote: The number of medical liability lawsuits against Mississippi doctors fell almost ninety percent one year after tort reform went into effect. Doctors have quit leaving the state and limiting their practices to avoid lawsuit abuse. Those dramatic results should be replicated on the national level, said Governor Barbour at the Heritage Foundation last week:
