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Perry defends Texas malpractice limits
Supporters of Texas' medical malpractice laws — including Gov. Rick Perry — are pushing back against a report that says the laws have made healthcare worse in the state.
The liberal advocacy group Public Citizen said Wednesday that since Perry signed tort reform into law in 2003, the state hasn't added new doctors as quickly as its overall population has grown. The report also said health insurance premiums there have risen faster than the national average.
According to Perry's office, the growth in the number of doctors practicing in Texas has outpaced population growth by 84 percent since tort reform became law. The increases are even higher in some of Texas' largest cities.
His office also said premiums for employer-sponsored coverage have risen more slowly than the national average as well as 27 other states. Public Citizen's report cited higher-than-average premiums overall, not just in the employer market. Most people get their coverage through an employer; individual plans are generally much more expensive.
Texas's law caps non-economic damages in malpractice suits at $250,000 — the same policy that doctors and many Republicans want to see applied at the federal level. President Obama opposes a cap on damages but has said he's open to other forms of malpractice reform, such as shielding doctors from suits if they adhere to a defined set of best practices.
Comments (9)
He has poured state resources into securing its border with Mexico. Still, Perry has angered many by defending his support for giving children of illegal immigrants in-state college tuition. It’s important to remember that Perry has never embraced some of the hair-brained schemes that have been cooked up for illegals, such as giving them welfare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Perry has laid the major blame for the immigration problem on the federal government, telling Newsmax in a recent interview that illegal immigration wouldn’t be a problem “if the federal government had simply done its job through the years to secure our borders.”
As governor, he has refused to raise taxes in Texas and vetoed more than $3 billion in proposed spending, becoming the first Texas governor since 1945 to reduce general-revenue spending.
He angered his state’s trial attorneys by enacting the strongest tort reform law in the nation, including the provision that the loser should pay almost all the costs of a failed lawsuit.
He approved budgets investing billions in education, but criticized George W. Bush’s intervention in education under “No Child Left Behind.”
His policies on taxes and tort reform have encouraged business activity in Texas, which has accounted for more than 40 percent of all new jobs created in the country since 2009. Perry has solid military experience as an Air Force pilot, serving for five years and rising to the rank of captain. This counts a lot in my book. Perry says a repeal of Obamacare is the “highest calling for whoever is the next president.” The bottom line is that Perry has compiled a solid conservative record since switching from Democrat to Republican in 1989. BY Listen Up on 10/13/2011 at 15:18
I appreciate the attention paid to our report but I think that the Perry spokespeople need to provide some actually data to back up their claim.BY Taylor Lincoln on 10/17/2011 at 13:37
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