US House Committee approves medical liability reform

In the USA, the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee passed legislation - HR 5, the Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-cost, Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act (The Pharma Letter January 24) – on Wednesday by a vote of 18 to 15 and the bill now goes to the full House of Representatives for consideration.

The bill, focussing on ways to eliminate “frivolous” law suits against medical personnel, was introduced by Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (Republican, Texas) The Congressional Budget Office estimates that medical liability reform would result in costs savings to the US federal budget of $54 billion over the next 10 years.

The bill imposes a $250,000 cap on subjective, non-economic damages; collateral source rule reform allowing evidence of outside payments to be made in court; a ban on subrogation by collateral sources; a fee schedule for attorney contingency fees; and imposes periodic payments of future damages.