On the recordMarch 21, 2012
In closing, I appreciate my good friend's confession about being a trial lawyer. I'm not. I'm not an attorney. So what I'm worried about is not how attorneys enrich themselves; I'm worried about the people that I represent, the 250,000-plus that are on Medicare. I'm concerned about them. You hear from the other side, well, don't worry about it. It could be 5, 10 years from now. Well, you know what? I'm concerned now because why would you have something put in place that's going to ration care to our seniors when they need it the most? That's when they need it the most. We should be advocating for them, not for trial lawyers. We should be here talking about tort reform to lower the cost. If you look at what California did, they're a model. They set up a model program. Their liability insurance for doctors is lower than the average across the board in the United States. This act, the HEALTH Act, is modeled after that. In regards to the noneconomic damages, limits on contingency fees for lawyers, big one there; about fair share, about proportional, whoever's at fault. It's a proportion of that reference to how the claim gets paid out. And I heard this talked about before: But will the health care act work to reduce health care costs and lower the deficit? According to the CBO, it will. It will be an average of 25 to 30 percent below what it would be under current law, which is IPAB today, 25 to 30 percent less than what the current law, IPAB, calls for.…
