[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 152 (Tuesday, October 20, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10533-S10534]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      HEALTH CARE WEEK XIV, DAY II

  Mr. McConnell. Mr. President, over the past few months, I have 
delivered a series of floor speeches on the kinds of commonsense 
reforms that Americans were looking for but have not seen in the 
ongoing debate over health care. In particular, I have noted the 
glaring absence of medical liability reform in the various Democratic 
plans that are kicking around here on Capitol Hill.
  My point has been simple: Throughout the debate, the administration 
has been hauling out one group or another onto the White House lawn as 
a way of suggesting support for its health care plans. We have seen 
doctors. We have seen nurses. We have seen hospitals, State 
governments--you name it. But one group you have not seen is the 
personal injury lawyers who drive up the cost of medicine and premiums 
for all of us by filing wasteful lawsuits against doctors and hospitals 
all across our country.
  The connection between lawsuits and higher health care costs is 
obvious. Because of the constant threat of these suits, doctors are 
forced to order costly but unnecessary tests and procedures to protect 
themselves. The routine nature of this so-called defensive medicine is 
one reason health care costs

[[Page S10534]]

have skyrocketed over the past decade, and junk lawsuits are the 
primary reason doctors today spend a fortune--a fortune--on liability 
insurance even before they open their doors for business.
  The prevalence of wasteful lawsuits is evidenced by the fact that 
Americans spend more on lawsuits than any other country and more than 
twice as much as all but one other country--not because American 
doctors are somehow more negligent but because our lawsuits tend to be 
more wasteful. In fact, according to the New England Journal of 
Medicine, 40 percent--40 percent--of liability suits in the United 
States are entirely without merit, and even in cases in which the 
plaintiff prevails, most of the compensation goes to someone other than 
the victim.
  There should be no doubt that wasteful lawsuits are a major reason 
that health care costs in this country are out of control and that we 
should do something about it.
  We have seen the good results of medical liability reforms at the 
State level. States that have adopted medical liability reform have 
witnessed premiums for medical liability insurance fall dramatically. 
Recent reforms in Texas, for example, helped drive down insurance 
premiums for doctors by more than 25 percent. These savings have 
allowed doctors in Texas to see more clients and increase charity care.
  Here was a commonsense reform that surely everyone could agree on. 
Yet, just like the other commonsense reforms Republicans have proposed 
as a way of fixing our existing health care system, our advice was 
ignored.
  The administration and Democratic leaders in Congress were determined 
from the outset to press ahead with a massive--a massive--expansion of 
government rather than take step-by-step reforms that the American 
people have been asking for all along. We have seen it in every 
Democratic proposal, including the recently finalized Baucus plan. In 
the face of indisputable evidence that medical liability reforms would 
lower costs, the Baucus bill offers nothing more than lip service--a 
sense of the Senate that ``Congress should consider establishing a 
state demonstration program.''
  Well, we already have State demonstration programs. We have them in 
California, we have them in Indiana, and we have them in Texas. They 
work, and we ought to be doing that at the Federal level.
  If Democrats were serious about getting rid of junk lawsuits, I am 
sure they could have found room in the 1,500-page Baucus bill for it. 
Unfortunately, they did not.
  Americans expected more than this. At the outset of this debate, 
everyone agreed that one of the primary reasons for reform was the need 
to lower health care costs, and commonsense experience and the 
testimony of all the experts tells us unequivocally--unequivocally--
that ending junk lawsuits against doctors and hospitals would lower 
costs. The question was not whether we should have included it. The 
only question was, Why would Democrats leave out such a commonsense 
reform?
  Unfortunately, the answer is all too obvious. Here is how a former 
Democratic National Committee chairman put it recently in a candid 
moment. This is what he had to say. ``The reason why tort reform is not 
in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on 
the trial lawyers in addition to everybody else they were taking on, 
and that is the plain and simple truth.''
  That is Howard Dean, Dr. Howard Dean, not Senate Republicans. Howard 
Dean says the reason this obvious, commonsense reform was not included 
in the Baucus bill is that the authors of the bill did not want to face 
the wrath of the lawyers.
  This is precisely why Americans are concerned about government-driven 
health care. Commonsense decisions become political decisions. And 
Americans do not want politics interfering with their health care. 
Medical liability reform should be in this bill. The fact that it is 
not only makes Americans more concerned about the impact government-
driven health care would have on their lives and on their care.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________