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  Bills We Oppose    
  TAPA opposed the following bills in the 2007 legislative session.  
  The recently-completed 2007 legislative session ended with good news for access to care. More doctors are coming to Texas, harmful legislation failed and the 2003 medical liability reforms are still intact. TAPA monitored more than 450 bills this past session. In so doing, we fended off six overtly threatening bills and an estimated 150 pro-plaintiff lawyer bills that carried the potential to do our membership harm.
Among the bills we opposed:		  

SB 468- Emergency Care
SB 468 (by Senator Rodney Ellis) would have substantially weakened the current emergency care protections. The bill would have lowered the burden of proof from “willful and wanton” to ordinary negligence and would have eliminated the specific jury instructions that detail the unique challenges in diagnosing and treating emergency care cases. Had this bill become law doctors would likely have steered clear of taking emergency call. Patients, especially rural patients, would not get the urgent and specialized care they need.

HB 3281—Paid or Incurred
HB 3281 (by Representative Phil King) would permit plaintiffs to collect discounted or forgiven medical bills. These phantom damages typically involve the pursuit of full medical charges billed by the physician or healthcare provider rather than the reduced amount paid by the health insurer. Permitting inflated damages would increase claims frequency; not meritorious claims but rather fake damage claims.

SB 1560 – Non-economic Damage Cap
SB 1560 (by Representative Juan Hinojosa) would have fundamentally changed the non-economic damage cap. Instead of the cap applying per defendant, Rep. Hinojosa’s bill would apply the cap per claimant. We firmly believe any change to the cap will increase cost and frequency of suits and would reduce access to care.

HB 3164- Expert Witness Testimony
HB 3164 (by Representative Robert Talton) would have restated the 1993 Daubert standard adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the admissibility of expert witness testimony. The bill’s caption was sufficiently broad to allow amendments that would reverse current law. A change in this law would discredit good science and discourage patient protection. Such a change would increase both frequency and the filing of groundless lawsuits. Removing expert witness standards would permit incompetent testimony.

  

SB 829- Oral Depositions
SB 829 (by Senator Rodney Ellis) would have permitted oral depositions of parties or non-parties prior to the service of the expert report. Essentially, SB 829 would have reversed the just announced decision by the Texas Supreme Court in In Re Jordan. Jordan which broadly upholds limiting discovery prior to submission of an adequate report by the plaintiff. The pre-report limitations decrease the costs associated with the many cases that are filed but later dismissed without any payment to the patient. The pre-report limitation also discourages plaintiffs from filing suits as a fishing expedition to see if a suit is worth filing.

HB 2879 –Expert Report
HB 2879 (by Representative Senfronia Thompson) would have granted a 30-day grace period to file expert report if failure to file was accidental. Likely, plaintiffs would always accidentally file their expert report late. Changing the law would increase the frequency, and increase the time commitment physicians devote to defending junk lawsuits instead of providing medical care. This would also increase the cost of responding to a claim.