Reis: Dems Playing Games with Life and Death Issue

May 13, 2005

Springfield…. State Representative David Reis (R-Ste. Marie) said House Republicans had numerous reasons to be cautiously optimistic following last week’s news that Democrat leaders had finally agreed to allow the House to debate meaningful medical malpractice reform. Those reasons came to light this week shortly after HB4074 was approved in committee. “We thought the Democrat leadership may be ready to work with us to solve our growing health care availability crisis,” said Reis “but it now appears they are once again playing political games with this life-and-death issue. “

A few short hours after voting with us to pass, out of committee, the bill that contained many of the provisions we need to stop the exodus of Illinois doctors, including a cap on non-economic damages of $250,000 for doctors and $500,000 for hospitals, Chicago Democrat Lou Lang proposed an amendment that would raise the caps to $1-million and $2-million respectively. After over an hour and a half of debate, Representative Lang’s amendment received just 22 “yes” votes.

“We make the argument that surrounding states have $250,000 to $350,000 caps,” Reis said, “and their premiums are lower. If we don’t model our tort system in Illinois to reflect those surrounding states our premiums are going to continue to be higher than surrounding states and our doctors are going to continue to leave. And with those doctors go quality paying jobs around the entire state.”

On Thursday, two more amendments that were tacked on by other House Democrats were defeated after long debates. “I find it amazing that hearings on this issue have been going on for almost 2 years and amendments continue to be filed that were never brought up in any of the public hearings,” said Reis. “All of the spin in the world can’t change the fact that these amendments are designed to slow down the process and defeat the underlying medical malpractice reform bill which is sponsored by five Democrats.”

Reis added there is a possibility that twenty or more amendments could be added to the bill, a strategy whereby the House runs out of time before getting the medical liability crisis reform package over to the senate. “If that is the case, the people who do that will be held accountable in areas like mine, which are losing physicians to other states where medical malpractice laws have been reformed,” said Reis. “This is an issue that isn’t going to go away and you can’t hide. You are either in favor of reasonable reform or you are doing everything you can to defeat it.”

The 108th District Representative said that while some of the amendments being added have merit in their own right and some of the stories the Democratic sponsors of those amendments are telling are horrendous “we need to remember the horrendous stories of people who are losing their lives because there are no doctors to tend to their needs. That is the issue people around the state are crying for and the issue we need to address.”

Reis added that the bottom line is simple. There are counties and cities throughout the state of Illinois that have absolutely no access to healthcare. “We have parts of our state that have to wait more than 13-months to get in to see an OB/GYN and that is wrong,” Reis said “Now is the time to stop playing games with people’s lives. I hope that when we return to Springfield next week we can get work done for the people of this state.”