Summary

SENATOR ORRIN HATCH SAYS THE PRICES DOCTORS ARE PAYING IN LIABILITY INSURANCE IS NOT ONLY DRIVING UP THE COSTS FOR PATIENTS,, BUT ALSO THE QUALITY AND AVAILABILITY OF QUALITY CARE AND SOME DOCTORS ARE REFUSING TO DO HIGH RISK PROCEDURES INCLUDING DELIVERING BABIES

Source CONUS Archive
Record ID 334406
Story Slug HATCH ON MEDICAL LIABILITY PROBLEM (1990)
Location WASHINGTON, DC
Format TVD
Date 07/30/1990
Archive Time 3:56:53
TRT 3:59
Supers Sen Orrin Hatch R- UT Dr James Todd AMA
Video Description TIGHT OF HATCH AT PODIUM SOT, TODD SOT, CUTAWAYS OF NEWS CONFERENCE
Description SENATOR ORRIN HATCH SAYS THE PRICES DOCTORS ARE PAYING IN LIABILITY INSURANCE IS NOT ONLY DRIVING UP THE COSTS FOR PATIENTS,, BUT ALSO THE QUALITY AND AVAILABILITY OF QUALITY CARE AND SOME DOCTORS ARE REFUSING TO DO HIGH RISK PROCEDURES INCLUDING DELIVERING BABIES
Script (SUGGESTED TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO) 00:00 You can see it's costing us an awful lot of unnecessary dollars The crisis, however, is not only affecting the cost but also the quality in the availability of health care And let's turn to the next chart Physicians are refusing to do high risk procedures and to accept high risk patients They have stopped delivering babies because of liability concerns Women today do not have to worry merely about finding affordable pregnancy related care They have to worry about finding any care at all For example, in Utah, more than half of the general and family practitioners have quit delivering babies Expectant mothers from our rural areas and small communities must often travel an extra 100 to 150 miles for this type of care This chart shows that, it seems to me, we have to move forward to enact solutions in the past, I believe the medical liability reform should be addressed by the states today However, the federal government pays between 40 and 50% of all the health care costs in this country The taxpayers deserve our attention to this major cause of rising health care costs, if we could save just part of the resources that are wasted because of the medical liability problem, we could begin to remedy this country's health care access problem without raising taxes, mandating health insurance or adopting other forms of national health insurance that would limit individual choices Last June, I and medical liability and to be available to answer your questions Now, it needs to be said that I do not want to protect those who commit medical malpractice That is not the goal here I am not interested in providing a screen for incompetent doctors to hide behind But to me, the bottom line of this legislation is that no child, no pregnant woman, no accident victim and no senior citizen, just to mention a few, should be denied health care merely because we have not found a way to protect honest and skilled health care practitioners and professionals from the threat of medical liability today 02:27 It is not soft legislation either For it requires new surveillance of the medical profession and its competence It requires programs to promote patient safety, and it helps ensure care for migrant workers But most importantly, this legislation will eliminate the Alice in Wonderland, world of professional liability, where now most of the dollars go to the system not to injure patients, and many deserving patients never get into the system because of the attorneys contingency fee threshold levels, untold billions of dollars are being wasted on a system that is neither predictable nor equitable There is no room for the status quo in any aspect of healthcare today, least of all professional liability The future lies in the legislation that Senator Hatch has developed We commend his efforts and pledge our support the today 03:20 we have, I think, an interesting I'm going to just take these out, if I can make it easier Dr John C Nelson, who is the president of the Utah Medical Association He had me reading nutrition and Gynecologists I think they're going to be interested in what he has to say We will then be pleased to hear from Dr James College 03:42 of Obstetricians and gerontologists I represent just under 30,000 obstetricians Indigent patients are perhaps the most severely affected, 54% of Texas off
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Keywords

AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION
AMA
ORRIN HATCH
JAMES TODD
MEDICAL LIABILITY
HEALTH CARE
HEALTH INSURANCE
HEALTH CARE COSTS
HEALTH CARE AVAILABILITY
INSURANCE FOR DOCTORS