Shelley Moore Capito: “I am glad you brought up medical malpractice reform because in West Virginia we have lived this subject since I have…”

“I am glad you brought up medical malpractice reform because in West Virginia we have lived this subject since I have been in Congress. In the campaign of 2002, many doctors were leaving the State of West Virginia, closing up shop, early retirement, choosing to try another State because of either the unavailability of medical malpractice insurance or the astronomically skyrocketing escalation of medical liability reform. So an interesting thing happened. West Virginia is known to be a State that is very tort friendly. So people asked me how did the State legislature, which is predominantly Democratic, and the Governor, who was Democrat, how were they able to pass with relative ease such massive medical malpractice reform legislation. I know exactly how because I was in that campaign in the 2002 year. It was people coming up to you on the street saying my doctor's leaving. It was grandparents, it was seniors, it was pediatricians, OB/ GYNs, neurologists, trauma specialists. Our largest hospital in my community had to close and be downgraded in terms of their trauma because the trauma surgeons left because of the high cost of medical liability reform causing, in one case, a young child in Putnam County, which is like 30 minutes away, had to drive all the way to Cincinnati, he and his parents, 4 hours away, to have a penny removed from his windpipe because there was no one to do it in our local area.”