Grieving Families Act, Part 3
Colleagues:
New York is known for Broadway plays, and the political actors in Albany are back at it.
Despite two previous vetoes from Governor Hochul, the New York state Legislature has yet again passed another version of the Grieving Families Act (A.9232-B), which would dramatically expand damage awards in wrongful death lawsuits.
This version would have the same extremely troubling impact on our healthcare safety net as did earlier versions.
This comes at a tough time for hospitals and medical practices. We already have a hard time making sure patients get the care they need with the current extraordinary liability costs we face. If enacted as currently proposed, actuarial studies predict the need for a 40% increase in malpractice premiums, which would make it impossible for many hospitals and community-based medical practices to remain open to deliver the care expected and deserved by our patients.
The Governor’s veto messages on previous versions recognized the “significant unintended consequences” of expanding the types of damages in wrongful death actions, including the adverse impact to our community healthcare infrastructure arising from the likely huge increase in liability costs it would face through these expanded liability awards.
Earlier this month, the Governor stopped implementation of Congestion Pricing for NYC traffic, stating that the economy is still in shambles from COVID and under too much stress to overcome another negative economic impact. It is imperative that the Governor continue to apply this same logic to her analysis of the healthcare access implications of the Grieving Families Act and vetoes it again.
Shakespeare once wrote, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” If so, then it behooves us to embrace our roles as advocates for our patients, play our parts, and call the Governor’s Office now (518-474-8390) with our pleas for the Governor to veto this legislation once again.
All the best,
Jerome C. Cohen, MD
MSSNY President
