• 14
  • September
    2011

Contrary to what advocates of "tort reform" claim, the Texas legislature's cap on noneconomic damages for victims of medical malpractice and other so-called "reform" seems to have done nothing to reduce the cost of health care in Texas.

The current president of the Texas Medical Association (an association which, as Noam N. Levey writes for the Los Angeles Times, is "historically conservative") says Texas just isn't ready. The president is Dr. Bruce Malone, an orthopedic surgeon. He says, "Texas just hasn't proven it can run a health system."

And another health care professional, Dr. Kenneth Shine, of the University of Texas, refers to lawmakers' response to dealing with health care as one that focuses only on limiting government spending.

As Levey writes, Shine says, "The philosophy has been the less public expenditure, the better. And some people will just have to make do."

Shine's "some people" are the 25 percent of people in Texas who cannot afford health insurance, for instance, as well as pregnant mothers who have to face the problem of living in one of the only states in the nation where the infant mortality rate has actually gone up - not down, as it has nationwide - according to the CDC.

Source: Los Angeles Times, "Texas healthcare system withering under Gov. Perry," by Noam N. Levey, 09/08/11