AAPI president Dr. Sunita Kanumury
“The issue of tort reform is of vital concern to our membership,” said AAPI president Dr. Sunita Kanumury. “It is a pressing matter that must absolutely be addressed because it directly impacts the way doctors practice medicine and the rising costs of health care in the United States. We are pleased to partner with the AMA on this initiative and hope that Congress will definitively address medical liability reform as part of an overall spending cut package at the end of the year,” said Kanumury.
The coalition letter was signed by AAPI and 54 medical associations along with 45 state medical associations. It asks the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to consider several liability reforms in its spending cut bill, including caps on non-economic damages similar to California and Texas.
“Placing caps on non-economic damages in states that have adopted tort reform has had a meaningful impact for physicians and health care costs,” said Dr. Vijaya Appareddy, chair of AAPI’s legislative committee. “We need to get medical liability insurance premiums down, and the only way to do that is reducing the number of baseless lawsuits filed against doctors. Congress passing medical liability reform is the right thing to do,” said Appareddy.
The AAPI Fall Legislative Day to be held in Washington DC will discuss this issue and others such as fixing the Medicare SGR and increasing residency slots.
India Post News Service
