Panel’s chairwoman to seek state declaration

Friday, March 1, 2002 | 9:42 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas -- appointed Thursday as chairwoman of a legislative subcommittee on malpractice insurance -- says her first act will be to ask State Insurance Commissioner Alice Molasky-Arman to declare a lack of insurance coverage for doctors.

"We need her to declare there is a shortage of insurance," Buckley said. That triggers several laws that will allow the doctors to form their own companies, she said.

Buckley said she would deliver her letter to Molasky-Arman today. She hopes a new company can be running within 90 days to provide coverage to physicians who otherwise might close their practices or move to other states when their insurance expires.

The insurance commissioner holds a public hearing Monday to determine whether insurance coverage is available for doctors in Southern Nevada who are complaining they can't get policies or that their rates are skyrocketing.

Buckley heads a six-member legislative subcommittee established Thursday by Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, who is chairman of the Legislative Commission.

Buckley said she will call the first meeting of the subcommittee in the next few weeks to examine short-term and long-term solutions.

"It is critical that we begin as soon as possible to investigate the causes of this crisis and its effect on patients and physicians," she said. "We cannot afford to lose quality physicians."

Perkins said the subcommittee is the appropriate action for the Legislature to take.

"Rather than the governor immediately calling a special session, as has been suggested," he said, "I believe a more prudent approach is to do a thorough investigation into the causes and possible solutions of the medical malpractice insurance rate crisis and related serious health care problems that are jeopardizing the delivery of health care in our state."

Molasky-Arman, if she finds doctors can't get insurance, has the ability to create a mechanism that would establish a system for coverage. This would be a temporary solution until the 2003 Legislature could convene.

Perkins said the legislative subcommittee will also look at overcrowding of Clark County emergency rooms and the accompanying diversion of ambulances delivering patients, the nursing shortage and medical errors.

The subcommittee will work with the Interim Legislative Committee on Health Care, which has already started looking at some of these problems, such as the short supply of nurses and the reporting of medical errors.

Others on the subcommittee are Sens. Mark James, R-Las Vegas, Randolph Townsend, R-Reno, and Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas. Assembly members besides Buckley are Assemblyman Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks, and Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville.

While some of the issues primarily concern Clark County, Perkins said all have "long-term, statewide implications and all are interwoven."