Michael Burgess: “It is causing doctors to leave the practice of medicine. There is no question about it. I saw it myself. The gentleman…”

“It is causing doctors to leave the practice of medicine. There is no question about it. I saw it myself. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) and I are perhaps the poster children for that. We left our practices and came to the relative safety of the United States Congress to avoid the pernicious medical liability climate. In south Texas along the Rio Grande Valley, it is a crisis of epic proportions. And until we passed some State reforms this past year, in September of last year, doctors were leaving the State in significant numbers. Malpractice insurers were leaving the State. We had gone from 17 insurers to four; and the policies were very, very restricted that were being written. Since we put in some very, very basic reforms, some very, very basic curtailments of noneconomic damages, the insurers in the State of Texas have now increased to 12, insurance prices have come down significantly. The crisis has been adverted to some degree in Texas, but it remains a nationwide problem.”