Byline: MARK A. HOFMANN
WASHINGTON-The Capitol Hill battle over White House-backed medical malpractice reform legislation appears to be turning into a search by politicians for who should bear the most blame for spiraling malpractice insurance prices.
As was evident at a rare joint hearing by the Senate Judiciary and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committees last week, many Democrats see the crisis as one generated by greedy insurance companies. Their Republican counterparts, meanwhile, appear to place the blame on overreaching trial lawyers and uninformed juries. The ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee used the hearing to announce that he was introducing a bill that would strip medical malpractice insurers of their limited immunity from federal antitrust laws guaranteed by the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945.
Meanwhile, the bill's chief sponsor in the House of Representatives told a …
No comments:
Post a Comment