Assembly passes insurance reform

Erin Neff

Wednesday, April 23, 2003 | 9:32 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The Assembly entered the medical malpractice fray Tuesday by unanimously sending the Senate a message: Insurance reform, not tort reform, is the answer to the crisis.

Assembly Bill 320, which passed 42-0, would reform practices related to both the insurance covering doctors and the way patient insurers reimburse physicians for services.

"These provider reforms on the first-party side and insurer reforms on the malpractice side, hopefully will lead to more stablity in our market," said Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas.

The Senate on Tuesday was headed in another direction, however. It approved Senate Bill 97, which, as amended, contains almost the identical language as an initiative petition seeking an exemption-free $350,000 cap on pain-and-suffering jury awards in malpractice cases.

That language had been amended out of the bill in committee amid testimony it would render the work of the Legislature in a special session last summer subject to being overturned by the courts.

"There's not much we can do if the Senate wants to play political games," Buckley said. "The Senate had rejected it and then did what they did, which we were assured would make the entire effort unconstitutional."

Buckley said the insurance reform bill "is focused on the reforms needed" from a policy, not a political, perspective.

AB320 prohibits an insurer from approving increased malpractice coverage rates if the increase is the result of the insurer's bad financial decisions, including the ones to cover a physician with numerous malpractice claims.

The bill also requires an insurer with 40 percent of the market share to give 120-day written notice if the company intends to leave the state.

Insurance industry lobbyist Jim Wadhams testified during a hearing on AB320 that those portions of the bill are targeting the St. Paul Cos., which many believe sparked Nevada's crisis by leaving the market and leaving so many of the state's doctors without coverage.

"St. Paul's is gone, but their practices can continue," Buckley said in an interview. "We need to prevent future companies from engaging in that same practice."

Assembly Judiciary Committee Chairman Bernie Anderson, D-Las Vegas, said Tuesday he did not think there was any appetite to discuss SB97 in his committee.

Even if the Legislature does nothing on SB97, voters will be asked to decide the merits of the measure in next fall's elections as a result of the initiative petition.