SB 164 could portend healthcare availability shortage on order of 1980s
Face The State Staff Report
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have assailed a bill they fear will drive up healthcare costs and potentially force quality doctors to flee the state.
Senate Bill 164, sponsored by Senate President Peter Groff, D-Denver, would raise the cap for non-economic damages, like pain and suffering, in medical malpractices suits from $300,000 to $468,000. Also, under the bill, physical impairment or disfigurement would now be considered economic damages with a cap of $1 million. Economic damages are those that can be measured monetarily, such as wages lost due to an injury.
According to Patrick Boyle, a representative for Copic, the state’s largest physician’s insurance company, the bill will discourage physicians from practicing in Colorado and limit access to care. As a result of the change in law, the company says it would have to raise its premiums across the board with high-risk specialties such as obstetrics and neurosurgery feeling the brunt of the pain. The Colorado Medical Society and its local chapters are lobbying heavily against the bill.
“It’s like an incentive to physicians to stop treating patients,” Boyle said.
State Sens. Bob Hagedorn, D-Aurora, and Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, are leading the coalition against SB-164, and co-wrote an editorial in The Denver Post sharply criticizing the bill.
According to Penry and Hagedorn, if SB-164 is passed it will “reduce access to health care as physicians stop delivering high-risk services.” Doctors in rural Colorado are already struggling and increased premiums could put them out of business – forcing citizens to drive long distances into urban areas for care.
The Colorado Trial Lawyers Association says the bill “is a very fair and modest piece of legislation that will restore the original intent of the Healthcare Availability Act.” Penry and Hagedorn contend that their support is because trial lawyers are the ones who would benefit from larger payouts, while the rest of us would be left paying the tab.
The Healthcare Availability Act was passed by the General Assembly in 1988 in response to an acute lack of health care providers willing to practice in the state due to a decade of malpractice insurance rate increases which topped out at over 70 percent. In that time a number of national malpractice insurers stopped writing policies in Colorado, with physician-owned insurers Copic and California-based The Doctor's Company writing the lion's share of policies today.
Doctors estimate that their medical malpractice insurance premiums would increase by 12-14 percent. Bipartisan critics of the bill say these high liability premiums will be passed onto patients. Doctors who could not afford the increased premiums will eventually leave their practices to work in states, like Texas, that offer more affordable insurance. Those who stay are likely to begin practicing “defensive medicine,” a giving patients costly and unnecessary tests in order to fend off potential legal action.
“As Gov. Ritter is talking about his building blocks for healthcare reform he should also be looking at ways to address tort very differently – not just by lifting the caps,” Hagedorn said.
SB-164 passed out of the Veterans and Military Affairs Committee and is now being debated on the Senate floor.