Friday, May 16, 2003 | 11:53 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- An Assembly panel decided this morning to give voters two choices next year on medical malpractice.
Senate Bill 97, as amended by the Assembly Judiciary Committee, puts a question on the fall ballot containing almost the same language as that in the Assembly Bill 1 -- the compromise law passed in a special session last summer.
That means that voters will see two ballot questions. The first, from the Assembly panel, asks voters to allow the current law time to work. The second, sought by an initiative petition backed by the state's doctors, seeks to bring further restrictions to the amount of money that juries can award for pain and suffering.
The one main exception in the Assembly panel's action is that the new question won't simply be an up or down on AB1. The amendment approved today offers a new cap on jury awards of $500,000 in noneconomic cases for non-wage earning seniors, housewives and children only.
Existing law in AB1 caps damages at $350,000, but gives a judge the ability to throw out the cap in cases of gross negligence. The amendment creates two caps -- one for wage earners, who can press a claim for greater economic damages based on their salaries, and another for seniors and children.
The committee voted unanimously to send the bill out of committee in time to beat tonight's deadline for passage from committee.
Assemblyman David Brown, R-Henderson, abstained because he missed the initial hearing and wanted more time to study the bill.
The medical malpractice crisis has been seen through a total political prism for the entire legislative session.
The Senate Judiciary Committee passed SB97 to the Senate floor, where it was gutted and replaced with the language in the initiative petition from the group Keep Our Doctors in Nevada.
The vote to amend SB97 on the floor was the closest of the session at 11-10 and faced staunch opposition from Judiciary Committee Chair Mark Amodei, R-Carson City, and Sen. Terry Care, D-Las Vegas.
Care said if the Senate amended SB97 in that fashion it would be the "legislative equivalent of Omaha Beach, and go two feet and be decimated."
The political goal of the amendment was to put Assembly Democrats in the tough position of having to kill the malpractice bill.
Instead a group called Nevadans for Quality Health Care proposed the amendment to include AB1. This morning the committee considered adding the new $500,000 cap for non-wage earners.
The battle for voters on the ballot questions will be between Keep Our Doctors in Nevada and Keep Quality Medical Care in Nevada.
Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, cleverly addressed another side of the political issue this morning -- winning support from Republicans in her house.
Assemblyman Garn Mabey, R-Las Vegas, who is a gynecologist and former obstetrician, initially expressed concern about several parts of the amendment, saying he still supports a medical-legal screening panel to weed out frivolous lawsuits.
He said he thought adding $100 to a doctor's licensing fee would generate enough money to operate the panel without state money. Mabey had introduced a bill earlier this session to reinstate the screening panel, which was eliminated during the special session.
"I don't think we could be that far from self-funding a panel," Mabey said.
Buckley offered to initiate an emergency bill -- outside of SB97 -- to create a screening panel. The emergency bill will be exempt from legislative deadlines.
Mabey thus changed his vote and accepted the bill.
SB97 now goes to the full Assembly for a vote.
On Thursday the Senate Judiciary Committee passed a separate piece of the malpractice puzzle in Assembly Bill 320.
AB320, sponsored by Buckley, institutes insurance reforms for both malpractice providers and the patient insurers that reimburse doctors.
AB320 now goes to the Senate floor for a vote.
The new screening panel bill will likely have to go through the Assembly Ways and Means Committee before it can pass.
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