*HB 1106 KILLED

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HB 1106 KILLED

Late on Tuesday, March 29, 2011, a hard fought attempt by CMS, COPIC, the Colorado Civil Justice League and other allies to legislatively reverse an adversarial Supreme Court decision-the "phantom damages ruling" which allows trial lawyers to recover "billed" medical charges rather than actual expenses in personal injury suits-was killed on a 3-2 vote.

The vote was along party lines with intense pressure to vote against the bill on the Democratic members of the committee from the Senate Democratic Leadership, at the urging of personal injury lawyers and labor unions.

HB 1106 had earlier this month passed the Colorado House of Representatives with bipartisan support, and by all accounts would have prevailed before the full state senate. Senate leadership, however, assigned the bill to die in the Local Government Committee instead of allowing it to be heard before one of the three typical committees of jurisdiction (Health, Judiciary or Business Labor and Technology) where CMS was confident of bipartisan support for the bill.

As a result of the bill's defeat, the Supreme Court decision stands. And, because the Court's decision means higher payouts for injured plaintiffs' medical costs, we anticipate an increase in malpractice insurance premiums.

In the coming weeks, the CMS Board, Workgroup on Patient Safety and Professional Accountability and our partners at COPIC will meet on next steps, both within and outside the legislature.

We want to thank all of you who took the time to contact your legislators about this bill, and those of you who showed up at the capitol for today's hearing. Many legislators commented to us about being contacted by so many physicians.

Today's events mark the beginning of a new chapter in CMS' liability reform efforts, and we will keep you informed as we develop the next phase of our strategy.

CMS wants to thank all the members of the House and Senate who voted or committed to vote for the bill, especially bill sponsors Rep. Bob Gardner (R-Colorado Springs) and Sen. Ellen Roberts (R-Durango) for their leadership on this important issue.

Thank you to those BCMS physicians who called, emailed or met with our Boulder County legislators.  We need your continued support!