The world’s greatest deliberative body, a.k.a. the U.S. Senate, has labored mightily and brought forth failure. “The Senate failed to pass medical liability reform legislation,” President Bush remarked. “The nation’s medical liability system is badly broken, and access to quality health care for Americans is endangered by frivolous and abusive lawsuits.”
The Senate action, while detrimental to the interests of its constituents, was decidedly in the best interests of trial lawyers. “Today’s Senate vote on whether to take action on medical liability reform legislation [the Patients First Act of 2003] thwarted the will of a majority of the American public,” says Donald J. Palisano, M.D., president of the American Medical Association, in an address to the National Press Club that same day.