[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 26 (Tuesday, March 8, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H996]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      REFORMING MEDICAL LIABILITY

  (Mr. BURGESS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, 2 years ago this month, this House passed a 
meaningful bill to reform medical liability in this country. Since that 
time, of course, the other body has failed to even have a vote on this 
important piece of legislation, so now we are going to see this 
legislation again in this Congress.
  But in the 2 years that have intervened, in my home State of Texas, 
we passed a bill and a constitutional amendment that allowed caps on 
noneconomic damages within the State of Texas. I think it would behoove 
this House to examine what has happened in the State of Texas since 
that time.
  Since then, medical liability insurers have returned to the State. We 
had fallen from 17 insurers to two, and now we stand at 14, with 
several insurers having come back into the State with rates that were 
flat or, in fact, lower. In fact, Texas Medical Liability Trust, my old 
insurer of record, has dropped rates from 12 percent right after the 
constitutional amendment passed and another 5 percent this year, for a 
total of 17 percent.
  But most importantly, Mr. Speaker, the Cristus Health Care System in 
south Texas, a self-insured hospital system, realized a $12 million 
savings in the first 9 months of this legislation, money that was put 
back into nurses' salaries, capital expansion, the types of things that 
we want hospitals to be doing, not paying for noneconomic damages.

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