The Senate Finance Committee has begun work on reviewing chairman Sen. Max Baucus' (D-Mont.) health reform bill. During this "mark up" session, senators will propose amendments to change, improve, add or cut the bill; and, there is no shortage of amendments with more than 500 proposals from the 20 or so senators on the committee.
Here are a few amendments to keep an eye on. These are amendments proposed by Republican senators and tackle two issues important to you and your peers -- the Medicare physician fee schedule and medical malpractice lawsuits. I'm interested to see if Republicans and Democrats can agree on these two issues, though I suspect/predict that they won't agree and senators will ultimately vote with their respective political parties.
Sens. John Ensign (R-Nevada) and Jim Bunning (R-Kentucky) proposed an amendment to eliminate the sustainable growth rate and would sync the Medicare fee schedule to a Medicare Economic Index. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) submitted an amendment that would raise reimbursements rates under the fee schedule beyond 2011. There's a projected 21.5% cut (which would be eliminated under the current version of the Finance Committee bill) scheduled for 2010, and a roughly 25% cut for 2011.
Cornyn's amendment "Protecting Doctors from Frivolous Lawsuits" takes on malpractice reform. It would have "any state receiving funds under Medicaid shall enact legislation that requires a plaintiff in a medical malpractice suit to accompany the filing of the complaint with a certificate or affidavit of merit signed by a qualified healthcare provider." Another Cornyn amendment states:
- That punitive damages in medical malpractice cases may only be awarded by a unanimous verdict of the jury as to both liability and amount.
- That plaintiffs may only recover punitive damages if they show by -clear and convincing evidence‖ that a defendant acted with malice or gross negligence.
Wyoming Republican Sen. Mike Enzi proposes $10 billion in incentives to states who adopt caps on "non-economic" damages for malpractice suits.