Please Urge Your Legislators to Protect Our Healthcare Safety Net by Preventing Massive Liability Expansion!
As we head into the final week of the Legislative Session, physicians are again urged to contact their Senator, as well as Senate Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins, to ask that S.6636 not be advanced. A slightly modified version of the wrongful death lawsuit legislation vetoed earlier this year by Governor Hochul, this legislation would exponentially increase awards in wrongful death lawsuits without taking any steps to address our already staggering liability costs. Unfortunately, its Assembly counterpart A.6698 passed by a 132-11 vote Thursday afternoon.
We thank the thousands of physicians who have taken the time to send letters, post tweets, and make phone calls to warn about the enormous adverse consequences for patient care were this bill to be enacted. However, far more contacts are needed.
The revised bill fails to remedy the fundamental concern that has caused many groups’ alarm with the legislation. It does have some substantive revisions, such as shortening the expanded statute of limitations, and providing some limitations to the expanded parties who could bring such actions. However, the continued expansion of wrongful death awards to include the new category of non-economic damages has led multiple actuarial studies to conclude that, if passed, the vetoed bill would have increased liability insurance costs by a staggering 40%. Indeed, the New York State Division of Budget has estimated that it would add nearly $700 million in new costs to the state’s hospitals, including nearly $200 million for the state’s distressed safety net providers that serve underserved communities. The adverse impact that this increase in cost would have on patient access to our health care system was a major reason why this legislation was vetoed by the Governor in January.
MSSNY and many other groups have taken their concerns to the public to warn them about the revised bill. Last week, Spectrum News reported on a letter from MSSNY and 17 specialty societies sent to the entire Legislature warning about the harm to our healthcare safety net if this bill were to pass. Moreover, op-eds have been published from the following county medical societies :
- Westchester County Medical Society physician leadership
- Nassau County Medical Society physician leadership
- Dutchess County Medical Society physician leadership
This legislation also has a large number of non-medical opponents, such as the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York, hospitals, municipalities, businesses, and the defense bar. An op-ed by the New York Conference of Mayors appeared this week in the Buffalo News Another Voice: Wrongful death bill would create fiscal devastation (buffalonews.com) urging that this bill not be advanced.
Again, please contact your Senator urging that any legislation to update New York’s wrongful death law be balanced to also address the extraordinary medical liability costs in our state.
