Governor Tom Vilsack isn’t interested in the proposal Senate Republicans tout which would cap the amount of “pain and suffering” awards in medical malpractice cases. Vilsack says he thinks a better approach would be to have a board review medical malpractice claims to weed out frivolous claims and issue a “certificate of merit” when malpractice has occurred.
Vilsack says the state could come up with some sort of form that would allow doctors to “express compassion and regret when there is a poor result” and Vilsack believes that might eliminate some lawsuits.
“My advice to legislators is to continue to look for the common ground,” Vilsack says. “There are some opportunities for us here to take some meaningful steps (to address the medical malpractice insurance problem). I’m not sure caps (on non-economic pain and suffering awards) is one of ’em.”