Senate rejects bill to limit malpractice awards

Republican senators push for measure while Democrats stand by victims

? As the Senate debated a bill to fight the cost of medical malpractice insurance, senators from Missouri and Kansas described a “tale of two cities” for patients and doctors in the Kansas City area.

Republican Sens. Kit Bond of Missouri and Pat Roberts of Kansas argued in vain Wednesday for legislation to limit how much money patients can win in malpractice lawsuits. The Senate voted 49-48, but 60 votes were needed to overcome a Democratic-led filibuster.

The White House is backing the bill as a way to curb soaring premiums for malpractice claims, but Senate Democrats argue it would penalize people for whom medical errors have caused serious injury.

Bond told colleagues that nearly one in three physicians in Missouri were considering leaving the practice of medicine because they can’t afford exorbitant rates for medical malpractice. His numbers came from a Missouri State Medical Assn. survey.

“Doctors who have practiced for years in Missouri are closing their doors, moving their practices and their families across state lines, or limiting the care and services they provide,” Bond said.

For example, Bond said, the Kansas City Women’s Clinic closed Dec. 31 because no insurance companies would offer a malpractice policy for their office in Missouri. The clinic had a dozen doctors and more than 6,600 visits each year.

He said Kansas City’s Midwest Women’s Healthcare Network saw insurance costs grow from $200,000 annually to $543,000 and described how obstetrician-gynecologists have sold practices or taken out loans because of insurance.

He said Missouri has lost 33 obstetricians in the past six months.

“Patients can’t get the care they need, and communities are losing their trusted doctors,” Bond said.

Roberts described the difference on the Kansas side of State Line Road.

“It seems that we have a tale of two cities between Kansas City, Kan., and Kansas City, Mo.,” said Roberts, who serves with Bond on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

“That’s because in the 1980s, Kansas enacted sweeping medical liability reform legislation creating a hard cap of $250,000 on noneconomic damages,” Roberts said. “By contrast, that same cap in Missouri is $557,000 and can go even higher.”

He described how several doctors quit practicing altogether in Missouri and now work only in Kansas, and said travelers on Interstate 70 should drive carefully, “because there is no trauma care basically between the Kansas state line and Columbia, two hours to the east.”

Roberts also described how Kansas insurance firms have imposed smaller rate increases than Missouri companies have.

Like the Kansas cap mentioned by Roberts, the Senate bill would limit pain and suffering, or noneconomic, damages to $250,000. Punitive damages would be capped at the same amount or double economic damages, whichever is greater. The bill also would allow states to set higher limits.