ASK YOUR FAMILY DOCTOR CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED

Today, Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE), a 25,000-member grassroots organization, launched the “Ask Your Family Doctor” campaign encouraging voters to ask their doctors how they should vote on Proposition 12, the constitutional amendment, which will limit arbitrary non-economic damage awards in medical liability lawsuits.

“Voters should consider who they trust, trial lawyers or their family doctors? Trial lawyers have an enormous stake in maintaining the current system and will spend millions of dollars to defeat Proposition 12,” said Peggy Venable, director of Texas CSE. “ Medical malpractice lawyers have caused health care costs to spiral, leaving millions of Texans without adequate health care.”

More than 150 Texas counties do not have a pediatrician and over 130 have no ObGYN.

“Texas is in a health care crisis,” said Venable.

Non-economic awards have quadrupled in the past ten years. Texas leads the nation with lawsuits filed against more than half of all Texas physicians. This is double the national average, while 86% of all medical malpractice claims are dismissed as without merit.

Consumers, particularly the elderly and ill, are the victims, according to CSE.

“Proposition 12 is about providing affordable and accessible health care and keeping family doctors in Texas practicing medicine,” said Venable.

The argument by those opposing Proposition 12 is that juries, not lawmakers, should determine monetary amounts, but juries are routinely given instructions.

“If trial lawyers and their front groups expect voters to believe their message, they must be high from the exhaust fumes of ambulances they’ve been chasing,” said Venable.

The legislature provided a remedy — a $750,000 cumulative cap on non-economic damages which does not limit economic damages includes past and future lost wages, medical bills, custodial care and prejudgment interest and does not eliminate the possibility of punitive damages. It’s a limit more patients can live with.

For more information on the “ASK YOUR FAMILY DOCTOR” campaign, call Texas CSE director Peggy Venable at 512/476-5905.