In my years of legislative work, I've signed my share of legal documents, but I was particularly pleased this session to be the first member to sign the conference committee report that resulted in the Legislature's final version of the medical malpractice insurance bill. It was over a year in the making, and as a member of the House Judiciary Committee, as well as one of 10 senators and delegates appointed to the committee that negotiated a compromise between the House and Senate, I learned first-hand how much study and deliberation led to the sweeping legislation.
The bill, which is on its way to Gov. Bob Wise for his signature, will limit damages in medical malpractice lawsuits, offer physicians tax credits on high insurance premiums and help establish a physicians mutual insurance company.
The "tort reform" measures, intended to discourage frivolous lawsuits and stop overly large jury verdicts, include a general $250,000 cap on non-economic damages. In cases involving three sets of circumstances - wrongful death; permanent physical deformity, loss or use of a limb or loss of bodily organ system; or permanent physical or mental impairment preventing patients from independent care - the cap will be set at $500,000. Trauma care damages will also be capped at $500,000.
"Joint liability," a current provision in state law that makes any defendant who is at least 25 percent negligent liable for more than their share of damages, will be abolished.
But the legislation also sets up a board which will be charged with studying, then creating, a fund to reimburse patients in two cases: Those claimants in trauma care cases who experience economic damages greater than the $500,000 cap, and those unable to collect damages due to the elimination of joint liability.
Although the civil justice reform aspect of the legislation has received the most media attention, our negotiating committee members spend much or our time settling on a method of offering financial relief for doctors facing escalating insurance costs, and finding a source of funding. The conference committee decided to offer a 10 percent credit against the health care provider tax to doctors whose premiums are between $30,000 and $70,000 and a 20 percent credit for those who pay more than $70,000. The credits will cost an estimated $10 million over two years.
But physicians are going to be required to do their part too. They will be required to contribute financially to help start the physicians mutual, which will eventually replace the state's involvement in offering medical malpractice insurance. During a special session on the medical malpractice insurance crisis in 2001, the Legislature set up a program within the state Board of Risk and Insurance Management to offer malpractice insurance to physicians. But no one in the Legislature wanted that setup to exist more than a few years - we want to get the state out of the insurance business as soon as possible.
Doctors will pay a one-time, $1,000 assessment, although full-time medical school faculty and student residents, as well as doctors on military service, those who work at certain clinics and those with special volunteer licenses, will be exempted. Private insurance companies will be assessed $2,500.
But the bulk of funding for the physicians mutual will come from a $24 million loan from the state's tobacco settlement trust fund. The state Board of Risk and Insurance Management, which was empowered by the Legislature in 2001 to offer medical malpractice insurance to help ease the crisis, is poised to stop writing policies by July 1, 2004.
As I write this column, there are still a few major issues still being debated, among them legislation to raise the legal weight limit for coal trucks to as high as 120,000 pounds. The legislation, which contains the stringent safety measures proposed by Gov. Bob Wise in 2002, would legalize loads of up to 120,000 pounds for trucks with six axles in certain counties of Southern West Virginia. When the bill was before the House Judiciary Committee, I was able to amend Summers County out of that group, so the limit in our county should remain 80,000 pounds, whether or not the legislation is ultimately adopted.
I welcome and appreciate your input on these issues, or any other legislative matter. Please call me at (304)340-3106 or write to Delegate Virginia Mahan, 215-E, Capitol Complex, Charleston, WV 25305.