This program is popular with participating health care providers, and it is not hard to understand why. The federal Health Resources and Services Administration estimates that health center providers saved more than $203 million on the cost of purchasing private insurance in 2008 alone. The program has also proven to weed out frivolous claims. More than half of all health center claims were settled administratively without going to court. From 1993 to 2009, only $298 million in resolved claims were paid under health centers' coverage - a pittance compared to 16 years of claims history in the private sector for any other provider type.
Adding new providers into an expanded program could allow for the plan to pay for itself by charging these providers a nominal participation fee to offset the costs of any payable claims. This fee would still be less than the cost of private sector malpractice coverage yet high enough to fully fund the program's obligations. In the best-case scenario, this proposal could even be a profit center to pay for other health care costs as the fund's reserves grow.
By setting the rules for who can and cannot come into the government-backed program, lawmakers have numerous options for dialing up or down the policy to drive physician behavior. We can assure more widespread use of electronic medical records; reward providers that practice in designated shortage areas; or assure that more private providers accept public health insurance options such as Medicare, Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program. We can do this and more by requiring such rules as a condition of participation in the new federal medical malpractice protection program.
The proposal could be further enhanced to incorporate specialty-care providers either in the same new program but with slightly different participation rules or by creating a separate option to buy into a plan in which the government functions as a reinsurer for their highest-cost cases.
For too long, this issue has been mired at the political margins on each end of the debate. Our nation is ready for fresh thinking and common sense solutions to the problems that have plagued us for too long.
And if a creative federal malpractice solution is not adopted in the near term, we should stand ready to get it done in Maryland.
Heather R. Mizeur, a Democrat, represents the 20th District in Maryland's House of Delegates, where she serves on the Health and Human Resources Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee. Her e-mail is heather.mizeur@house.state.md.us.
