Comments made by President Obama last week touching on medical malpractice reform yielded a lukewarm response from tort reform advocates and the plaintiffs bar.

While tort reformers praised the president for mentioning the issue in his speech to Congress on health care reform, they say that he didn't go nearly far enough.

And a trial lawyer group said that any reforms should concentrate on reducing medical errors.

In his speech last Wednesday, President Obama said that while medical malpractice reform is not a “silver bullet,” doctors practicing “defensive medicine may be contributing to unnecessary costs.” He then proposed “that we move forward on a range of ideas about how to put patient safety first and let doctors focus on practicing medicine.”

He called the Bush administration's consideration of demonstration projects in individual states to test such ideas a “good idea” and said he was directing the secretary of Health and Human Services to pursue that initiative.

Jim Copland, director of the Manhattan Institute's Center for Legal Policy in New York, welcomed the comments.

“I don't think that those of us who support legal reform should understate the importance of a Democratic president of the United States in a major address to both houses of Congress acknowledging the import of the litigation system on the health care system,” he said, noting that he continues to oppose the current health reform proposals.

“The positive is that he recognized that defensive medicine is costly and that medical liability is a problem,” said Victor Schwartz, general counsel of the American Tort Reform Assn. in Washington. “The trial lawyers deny that. But his approach is really of no use because he is delegating to an agency what amounts to a study,” he said. “It was kind of an olive branch with no olive.”

For its part, the American Assn. for Justice, which represents the trial bar, issued a statement saying: “The pilot programs outlined by President Obama will require more detail. But the focus must be on reducing medical errors and improving patient safety. Over 98,000 people are killed every year by preventable medical errors. Reducing accountability won't improve health care.”