Reid Seeks “Backroom Deal” To Protect Trial Lawyers

Tuesday, 20 October 2009 12:59

In the News

WASHINGTON - In a remarkable display of partisan bullying, The Hill reports this morning that Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) pressured doctors to back away from their push for medical malpractice reform in return for Reid’s offer to freeze cuts in Medicare payments during a recent Capitol Hill meeting with medical professionals on health care reform.

"Allegations of a quid pro quo are a serious matter and Harry Reid owes his constituents, and particularly medical professionals in Nevada, an immediate explanation. It’s bad enough that he’s blocking legislation that would save taxpayers $54 billion a year, but to pressure doctors and basically threaten their salaries in a backroom deal is beyond the pale," said National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) spokesman Brian Walsh.

According to The Hill, "the primary focus of the meeting was on Democratic plans to bring to the Senate floor a standalone bill costing nearly $250 billion that would freeze cuts in doctors’ payments mandated by a 1997 law. Without the freeze, doctors would see their Medicare payments drop by 21 percent next year and by 40 percent by 2016."

But during the meeting, "Reid also asked that doctors ‘ease up’ on demands for medical malpractice reform during the upcoming healthcare debate. Democrats have traditionally resisted calls for tort reform, which trial attorneys - a reliable base group - staunchly oppose."

Reid has been an increasingly outspoken opponent of medical malpractice reform as he stocks his campaign coffers in order to wage an uphill re-election bid in 2010. Last week he referred to the $54 billion that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated would be saved from including med mal reform in the health care reform bill as a "very small percent."

Not surprisingly, Reid - a trial lawyer himself - took nearly $1.5 million in campaign contributions from lawyers during the first half of 2009 alone.

Medical malpractice reform has long been supported by Republicans as a commonsense method of reducing health care costs. This morning on the Senate floor, Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) declared "there should be no doubt that wasteful lawsuits are a major reason that health care costs in this country are out of control - and that we should do something about it."

McConnell went on to say that "if Democrats were serious about getting rid of junk lawsuits, I’m sure they could have found room in the 1,500-page Baucus Bill for more than that. Unfortunately, they did not."

In September 2009, the Washington Post reported that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) "sidestepped the malpractice issue at the behest of Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.)"

"While Harry Reid claims to fight for Nevada in glitzy television ads and highly-publicized political rallies, his dogged opposition to much-needed medical malpractice reform hurts his constituents with each passing day," Walsh concluded.