Legislators in Florida weigh medical changes for adult children medical changes

Tallahassee, Fla. -The legislators in Florida consider to change a law for decades and to clear the way for more medical misconduct complaints due to patient deaths.

With the issue, which was closely observed by health, economic and legal groups, the subcommittee of the House Civil Justice & Claims unanimously approved a draft law (HB 6017) on Wednesday, which would make the change one day after approval of a similar measure (SB 734).

The legislation would reverse part of a 1990 law that contains legal disputes with illegal death and which is known as “non -economic” damage to things such as pain and suffering.

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This part of the law prevents people from looking for non -economic damage under certain circumstances. People who are 25 or older cannot obtain in cases of medical misconduct in the event of medical misconduct in the event of their parents' deaths. In addition, parents cannot obtain damage in cases of misconduct in which the death of their children from the age of 25 is involved.

Numerous people told the legislators this week that the law prevented them from pursuing complaints for misconduct in the death of family members. Supporters said the legislation would blame the health service providers for negligence.

“This bill is simply about accountability and parity,” said the house accounting sponsor Dana Trabulsy, R-Fort Pierce.

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However, the opponents argued that this would lead to hundreds of additional lawsuits for medical misconduct every year, which increases the insurance costs and tightens the lack of doctors. David Mica, lobbyist of the Florida Hospital Association, said that this would influence access to patient care, for example in areas with rural hospitals.

“In general, we are worried that we really deal with access to care,” said Mica. “When we look at our rural hospitals, they run with ranges of razor.”

Medical misconduct has been a battlefield in the land capitol for decades. Doctors and their allies tried to limit the plaintiff's legal disputes and lawyers, and argued that borders would prevent injured people and their families from getting justice.

This political dynamic became apparent this week, and opponents of the legislation, including the Florida Hospital Association, the Florida Medical Association, the Florida Osteopathic Medical Association, the Florida Insurance Council, the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the Associated Industries of Florida. The supporters included the Florida Justice Association, which represents the plaintiffs' lawyers, and Aarp.

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Legislators have considered similar legislative templates in recent years, but have not adopted them.

As an example of the people who testified this week to be affected by the law, Sabrina Davis told the House Panel that her father Keith Davis went to a hospital for knee pain. She said that a doctor had not ordered an ultrasound that would have discovered a blood clot who would have led to his death.

Davis said Florida “should not be a state that offers a refuge for bad medicine.”

But Vicki Norton, a emergency doctor from Palm Beach County, who represented the Florida Medical Association and the Florida Osteopathic Medical Association, told the legislators that the costs of misconduct in the state were “astronomical”. She said the invoice would harm the efforts to attract doctors and to influence access to care.

The house law would also have to vacate the justice committee of the house before going into the full house. The Senate version, which was approved on Tuesday by the Senate Justice Committee in a 9-2 vote on Tuesday, would have to delete two further committees before it could go to the full Senate.