Jim Sensenbrenner: “I yield myself 1 minute. We have heard an awful lot about the impact on insurance premiums, and I just want to read from…”

“I yield myself 1 minute. We have heard an awful lot about the impact on insurance premiums, and I just want to read from the CBO estimate, the cost of this bill. The CBO estimates that under this bill premiums for medical malpractice insurance ultimately would be an average of 25 to 30 percent lower than what they would be under the current law. However, other factors noted above may affect future premiums, possibly obscuring the anticipated effect of the legislation. The effect of H.R. 5 would vary substantially across States, depending upon the extent to which a State already limits malpractice litigation. There would be almost no effect in malpractice premiums at about one-fifth of the States, while reductions in premiums would be substantially larger than the overall average at about one-third of the States. What this means is that the reduction in premiums will be much greater in the States where there is a crisis, and what this bill does is that it provides access to medical care in States where high risk specialists are closing their practices because they cannot make enough money to support themselves and to pay their liability insurance premiums.”