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Legislative Update From SAGESMedical Liability Reform Information From Don Palmisano, M.D.SAGES members: Last week AMA President-Elect, Donald Palmisano, MD (a surgeon) spoke at a luncheon during the SAGES meeting. A leading topic of discussion at the lunch was medical liability reform. Dr. Palmisano is a now calling on our membership to join in grassroots efforts supporting medical liability reform. An email from Dr. Palmisano follows with talking points you can use when contacting your state Senators. Details about how to contact your representatives are also included. Please take the time to read over the information Dr. Palmisano has put forward and contact your Senate representatives. Let SAGES voice be heard. SAGES Legislative Committee From: Donald Palmisano DJP 3-16-2003 AMA Update: Urgent need to activate grassroots for U.S. Senate Vote Dateline: Washington, DC ACTION ITEM: Urgent need to activate grassroots for U.S. Senate Vote Obviously we can't predict the future but the odds are overwhelmingly the U.S. Senate will debate and vote on medical liability reform the week of March 24th. Of course, war or a terrorism act on America could alter the schedule. ATLA (Association of Trial Lawyers of America) already has sent its legislative alert to the ATLA membership to block medical liability reform in the Senate. The week of March 24th may be our brief window of time to get effective medical liability reform done. It is the destiny of each of us to be at the leadership of our county, state, specialty, and AMA organizations (and yes,the wonderful Alliance!) at this time of crisis for Medicine. We must deliver the goods. Cross the goal line. Win the battle. Talking and lamenting won't do it. Action and sacrifice are required. Just as Jimmy Stewart left his movie career to be a pilot in WWII and Ted Williams left baseball at the height of his career to do the same, we also must take the time to bring forth the greatest grassroots effort Organized Medicine has ever seen. This will be our Normandy invasion. In a previous correspondence, I pointed out that Senators informed us we need to get 350 messages to each Senator to get on their radar screen. Let us sacrifice and individually arrange for 350 calls or letters to reach each Senator. Not only do we individually write or call each Senator but also we arrange for our colleagues and friends to do the same until 350 contacts are arranged by each of us. Imagine what would happen if each of you arranged for 350 contacts to be made to each Senator. I have 1620 leaders on this e-mail list. 1620 times 350 equals 567,000 messages. This should light up the radar screen. Each of us can call friends (and friends obviously are not limited to physicians) and arrange for 350 messages to each Senator. Thus we soon will have an army of workers. Time is of the essence. You may hear "But I am too busy, I don't have time." Not an acceptable response! Well, they will have lots of time if they are not able to practice medicine because medical liability insurance is unavailable or too costly to purchase. Tell everyone it is time to demonstrate they are willing to do more than just talk about the problem. We need them to call or write (Also can e-mail directly from AMA web site. See link below.) The message is simple. You can reword it as necessary and give local facts but be sure the essence below is contained. Patient access to medical care is threatened by the broken medical liability system. Eighteen states are now in crisis. Support and vote for medical liability reform in the Senate that brings the proven California MICRA law nationwide. A flex-cap provision in a federal bill allows states with different but effective laws to maintain them. Multiple surveys show patients in America favor caps on subjective non-economic damages. This is not a total cap on damages as patients can get a lifetime of medical care, lost wages, etc. if injured by negligence. Especially ask Democrats to work with Senator Feinstein of California. She announced that she is considering a MICRA bill in the Senate. We need 60 votes to stop a filibuster and will need Democrats on this bill in addition to Republicans. Remind the Senators to review the AMA examples of loss of access to care in the AMA written testimony supplements (supplement with named physicians may not be at web site at this moment) given to the House Judiciary Committee. AMA testimony is available at: http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/6281.html The AMA web site has more information and ways to contact your senators. http://capwiz.com/ama/issues/alert/?alertid=31007&type=CO What will be tell the next generation of doctors or our friends or grandchildren when they ask us what we did in March of 2003 to save Medicine. Will we say we were there in the successful battle and tell them with pride we helped get each Senator 350 messages and eventually a half-million messages were received in the Senate? Or will we say we were too busy and it is sad that Medicine fell into a new Dark Age, a Dark Age of Medicine that saw physicians disappear and patients suffer because there was no one there in the hour of need? Never before in the history of the United States has there been a President who repeatedly speaks of the need for medical liability reform in major speeches. Everything is in place for success is we have the will and make the sacrifice. P.S. I have enclosed the background information that I presented to National Association of Insurance Commissioners on behalf of AMA. It contains more details to rebut the stock market arguments, insurance reform, etc. To download the information in the Adobe Acrobat format, click here. To receive updates by email on issues such as the above and on other projects the Society is involved in, please subscribe to our free monthly newsletter using the form below.
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