Today, we draw your attention to a terrible piece of legislation being proposed by Utah State Senator
Peter Knudson (R-Brigham).
The specifics of this harmful bill are much more technical-sounding than the straightforward effect it would have—namely, making it considerably more difficult for patients injured in hospital emergency rooms to be compensated.
Knudson attempts to justify this indecent proposal by hauling out the tired old “access to care” argument—namely, that the fear of lawsuits has supposedly become so pervasive that ER docs have begun fleeing the state in screaming droves.
Of course, the medical lobbies offer no empirical data to back up these hysterical assertions because frankly, none exists. In fact, the evidence overwhelmingly tends to point the other way. According to the American Medical Association’s own data, the number of emergency room physicians in Utah has been steadily increasing in recent years, rising from 212 in 2003 to 281 by 2007.
We could go on, but you get the idea—patients have plenty of access to emergency care, and this bill could not be any more bogus.
Given that the hospital location where most malpractice occurs is the emergency room, let’s hope the Utah bill ends up on the legislative scrap heap where it belongs.
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