Senator Feinstein
to Introduce
Medical Malpractice
Reform Legislation
January 16, 2003
Washington, DC - Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today announced that she plans to introduce a bill, after the Martin Luther King Jr. recess, to reform the medical liability system through legislation based on California's malpractice reform law, the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA).
"We need national legislation because the medical profession faces a liability crisis. Exorbitant insurance rates in some states have forced doctors to abandon their practices and leave their states to practice medicine elsewhere," Senator Feinstein said.
"With the California law, we have a time-tested solution. California passed MICRA in 1975, so we have over 27 years of successful experience with the law."
"In the decade before MICRA's enactment in California, malpractice claims had increased by 200 percent and the amount of malpractice settlements increased by 1000 percent. Now that MICRA is in place, medical malpractice claims in California are settled faster and at lower costs than many other states and we don't face a flight of doctors from our state because of high malpractice rates."
The legislation will
have the following key provisions:
- no limits on economic damages such as lost earnings, medical care, and rehabilitation costs;
- caps on non-economic damages;
- reasonable guidelines for punitive damages;
- reasonable limits on attorneys' fees.
- a fair statute of limitations.
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