September 17, 2009
Twenty-five million dollars sounds doesn't sound like much, but it's the administration's start down the road to potential medical malpractice reform.
The money will go toward experiments that try to reduce preventable injuries, improve communication between patients and doctors, assure "fair and timely" compensation to injured patients while cutting down on "frivolous lawsuits," and lower malpractice insurance premiums for doctors, as Health and Human Service Secretary Kathleen Sebelius explained it today.
The announcement is a follow-up to President Obama's pledge to get moving on malpractice projects made during his speech to Congress last week. A presidential memo to Sebelius on the subject is here.
Obama has had an interest in medical malpractice for quite a while, even co-writing a piece in the New England Journal of Medicine on the subject with Sen. Hillary Clinton three years ago. The then-senators even introduced a bill in 2005 that would have created a new patient safety office within HHS and encouraged alternatives to litigation for compensation. But the proposal never went anywhere.
The highlight of the Sebelius briefing today had nothing to do with tort reform and everything to do swine flu precautions. She reprimanded ABC's Chuck Todd for sneezing improperly after quickly showing him the right way—into a sleeve. After a quick, "Bless you," she exclaimed, "I mean, what is that about? Geez!" Check out the ABC video cliphere.
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