A bill that could spare emergency room doctors and other emergency medical care providers from healthcare lawsuits passed the Senate Health Regulation Committee in quick order Thursday.
Senate Bill 1474, sponsored by Sen. John Thrasher, R-Jacksonville, Chair of the Republican Party of Florida, passed 5-2.
Proponents of the bill say it will improve the states chances of attracting emergency medical care providers. Its critics say it shifts the burden of lawsuits to the state and, ultimately, the taxpayers.
It would give emergency care practitioners sovereign immunity, meaning they cannot be individually named in a healthcare lawsuit without their consent. The same protection is afforded employees of government agencies.
As part of sovereign immunity, claims against emergency health care providers can't be for more than $100,000 per person or $200,000 per incident.
Thrasher came under attack from state trial-lawyer lobbyists when he ran for office last year. Some have claimed he now is trying to get revenge against them through his policies. In an interview, Thrasher denied that was his motivation.
No revenge, he said. Its just good public policy.
Bill Bell, general counsel for the Florida Hospital Association, agrees.
Its to try to ensure that we have a strong medical staff and are able to attract new physicians into the state, he said.
The health care industry has attempted to extend sovereign immunity to all emergency service providers, a category that ranges from doctors to ambulance drivers.
Florida has struggled to attract quality health-care professionals, and giving them sovereign immunity would make working here more palatable, Bell said. The state already has one of the highest malpractice lawsuit rates in the nation. The state's Three Strikes law, which allows physicians licenses to be revoked if they lose three malpractice suits, is another discouraging factor, Bell said.
Quoting a recommendation from 2002, Bell said 10 percent of the malpractice suits involve emergency providers.
We think moving emergency services under the existing limits of sovereign immunity certainly makes sense, he said.
The Florida Justice Association said the bill is a harmful hurdle for those injured by negligent medical practitioners and taxpayers in general. The state isnt deterring lawsuits, said Debra Henley, acting executive director of the group. Its just shifting the burden to itself.
It would create a government-run insurance policy, she said.
The state already puts much of the burden of winning malpractice cases on patients. It limits how much a claimant can win in economic damages (it caps them at $150 million). The proposed cap would put patients suffering from long-term illnesses at an economic disadvantage.
In addition, those with sovereign immunity are all treated as state employees, and Thrashers bill only partly provides for that requirement. For it to do so fully, the state would have some control over firing and hiring the providers and have access to their personnel files.
When asked if she felt Thrasher had taken up the issue in retaliation against lawyers, Henley did not answer directly She said the sovereign immunity legislation is a problem that keeps coming back to plague lawyers because it was recommended in 2002, and that Thrasher was the newest one to pick it up. She said the association planned to educate legislators about the bill's problems to see it defeated.
