WASHINGTON--Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry supports "meaningful but enactable" medical malpractice liability reform, said one of the Massachusetts senator's health care advisers during a Washington panel discussion of health care as a campaign issue on Wednesday.
"I bet most people in this room don't know that there is a policy," said Chris Jennings, president of Washington-based Jennings Policy Strategies Inc. Mr. Jennings said that Sen. Kerry's policy would focus on preventing medical errors and promoting patient safety but would require that malpractice claims be reviewed by medical specialists to ensure that a "reasonable grievance exists." Mr. Jennings said that lawyers who brought three frivolous medical malpractice claims would be barred from bringing further claims, and mediation--rather than litigation--would be an option for all medical malpractice claims. In addition, punitive damages would be barred in all medical malpractice cases except those involving "reckless indifference to life," said Mr. Jennings, a former adviser to President Clinton who now serves as an unpaid adviser to the Kerry campaign.
Another speaker, Megan Hauck, deputy policy director for the Bush-Cheney campaign, also called for medical malpractice reform. "Medical liability is the largest cost in the health care system," said Ms. Hauck. President Bush has repeatedly called for significant changes in medical malpractice liability, including caps on noneconomic damages.
The Alliance for Health Reform and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation sponsored the panel discussion.
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