 |
| ESPC Home | | | 2003-04 LAP* Book | | | Background | | | Legislator Profiles | | | Key Votes | | | LAP* Book Home |
|
|
| Numeric List |
|
|
| Budget |
|
|
| Accountability |
|
|
|
Health & Human Services |
|
|
| Justice System |
|
|
| Education |
|
|
| State Employees |
|
|
|
Taxation & Revenue |
|
|
|
Wildlife & Environment |
|
|
|
Worker & Public Safety |
|
|
| Tribal Affairs |
|
|
| Senior Citizens |
|
|
2004 Budget Session
SF 28 was brought as a companion bill to SJ 2, the proposed constitutional amendment that would permit the Legislature to create a Commission on Health Errors. If the Wyoming Constitution were amended to allow it, the Commission on Health Errors would provide an alternative system of compensation to victims of medical errors while simultaneously abolishing the right of a person injured by medical error to sue the health care provider.
The bill directed the Wyoming Health Care Commission to study the feasibility, costs and benefits of a new system to address health care errors and medical malpractice. This new system would identify health care errors and what causes them, and would identify medical malpractice. The new system would prevent future errors and malpractice through unspecified improvements to the health care system. Finally, it would compensate individuals (as their exclusive remedy) for damages resulting from avoidable health care error.
SF 28 specified that people who were injured by avoidable medical error would be reimbursed for all health care expenses resulting from the error, and for other expenses including loss of earnings or earnings potential, increased living expenses, and other compensation (simply defined as "appropriate") according to a schedule or formula.
The Health Care Commission study was to consider the schedules or formulas necessary to determine the compensation of people injured by avoidable health care error.
The study was to estimate the total cost of such a health care error system, and to compare the percentage of the total cost of the new system that would be paid to victims with the percentage of total settlements or verdicts that has been actually received by victims of health care errors or medical malpractice under Wyoming's current tort liability system.
The study was to consider how to obtain the necessary funding for the new system.
Finally, the study was to consider how to allow a person to appeal a decision of the Commission on Health Errors to the courts without allowing the courts to revert to the existing tort liability system.
The study was to be completed by October 15, 2004, with a possible extension until no later than October 2005. The Wyoming Health Care Commission would receive $350,000 from the general fund to accomplish the study.
Proponents of the study believed that replacing Wyoming's present tort liability system with a system as described in this bill would result in improved patient safety, a reduction in avoidable medical errors, and lower costs to doctors as this system replaced their medical malpractice insurance.
Opponents of SF 28 noted that it might be in conflict with other sections of Wyoming's constitution that guarantee equal access to the courts, because individuals injured by medical malpractice would not have the same legal rights as other individuals have. Opponents generally believed that Wyoming's current tort liability system serves Wyoming citizens well, and that perceptions of abuse within that system in Wyoming (i.e., frivolous lawsuits or unreasonably large settlements in medical malpractice cases) are misconceptions not based on fact.
SF 28 made it through the vote for introduction (28-1, 1 excused) and two committee votes (Senate Judiciary Committee 4-1 and Senate Appropriations Committee 5-0, and was placed on general file in the Senate. There it died when it was not considered by the Committee of the Whole by the deadline for action.