[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 48 (Wednesday, April 7, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Page S3871]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          MEDICAL MALPRACTICE

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, the second issue, that I just mention 
briefly, has to do with the cloture vote on the medical malpractice 
issue that will come before the Senate this afternoon.
  This bill actually differentiates between those who walk in the front 
door of a hospital and those who get emergency care. We objected last 
time we voted on this because it differentiated between men and women. 
Men and women would be treated differently under the bill that cloture 
was voted on a few weeks ago. Now our Republican colleagues add to that 
people who walk into a hospital or are taken into a hospital via an 
emergency room.
  This draws a distinction that I think is inexplicable. If you are 
injured in an emergency room, under this legislation, you have 
virtually no legal recourse. If you are injured by walking through the 
front door of a hospital, you still have all the recourses that are 
allowed under Federal law. Drawing that distinction, to me, is not an 
improvement. That is not reform. Yet that is what some of our 
Republican colleagues have said.

  On more than one occasion, Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Dick 
Durbin have said they are prepared to work, in a bipartisan way, to 
allow us the opportunity to address meaningful malpractice reform, 
including the high cost of malpractice insurance. But that is what it 
is going to take.
  Having cloture votes on bills that draw a distinction between two 
circumstances that have nothing to do with punitive damages, or with 
economic damages for that matter, is something I think will get us 
nowhere. This vote, as all the other votes, will not be accepted. It 
again reminds us how important it is that we work together to find a 
real solution to malpractice, as Senators Graham and Durbin are doing.

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