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Prepared Witness Testimony The House Committee on Energy and Commerce
The Medical Liability Insurance Crisis: A Review of the Situation in Pennsylvania
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
Miss. Leanne Dyess
Congressman Greenwood,
Governor Rendell, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it's an honor
for me to be here this afternoon - to share with you the devastating
consequences of the crisis surrounding medical liability costs.Others today will talk in terms of economics and policy.I want to speak from the heart.I
want to share with you the life my two children and I are now forced to live
because of rising liability costs that many doctors in the many parts of the
country cannot afford. I am a teacher.For twenty years, I have taught some of the brightest young minds in
Mississippi.I know the value of a
story to make an important lesson memorable; but never did I think that my life
- and the life of my children - would become the cautionary tale on this
important issue. Our story began on July 5th
of last year, when my husband Tony was returning from work in Gulf Port,
Mississippi.We had just started a
new business.Tony was working
hard.We were doing our best to
build a life for our children.Everything
looked bright.Then, in an instant,
it changed.Tony was involved in a
single car accident.They suspect
he may have fallen asleep, though we'll never know. What we do know is that after
removing him from the car, they rushed Tony to Garden Park hospital.He had head injuries and required immediate attention.Shortly thereafter, I received the telephone call that I pray no other
wife will ever have to receive.I
was informed of the accident and told that the injuries were serious.But I cannot describe to you the panic that gave way to hopelessness when
they somberly said, "We don't have the specialist necessary to take care of
him.We need to airlift him to
another hospital." I couldn't understand this,
Mr. Chairman.Gulf Port is one of
the fastest growing and most prosperous regions of Mississippi.Garden Park is a good hospital.Where,
I wondered, was the specialist - the specialist who could have taken care of
my husband? Almost six hours passed before
Tony was airlifted to the University Medical Center - six hours for the damage
to his brain to continue before they had a specialist capable of putting a shunt
into his brain to drain the swelling - six unforgettable hours that changed
our life. Today Tony is permanently brain
damaged.He is mentally
incompetent, unable to care for himself - unable to provide for his children
- unable to live the vibrant, active and loving life he was living only
moments before his accident. I could share with you the
panic of a woman suddenly forced into the role of both mother and father to her
teenage children - of a woman whose life is suddenly caught in limbo, unable
to move forward or backward.I
could tell you about a woman who now had to worry about the constant care of her
husband, who had to make concessions she thought she'd never have to make to
be able to pay for his therapy and care.But
to describe this would be to take us away from the most important point and the
value of what I learned. Congressman Greenwood, I
learned that there was no specialist on staff that night in Gulf Port because
rising medical liability costs had forced physicians in that community to
abandon their practices.In that
area, at that time, there was only one doctor who had the expertise to care for
Tony and he was forced to cover multiple hospitals - stretched thin and unable
to care for everyone.Another
doctor had recently quit his practice.And
on that hot night in July, my husband drew the short straw. I have also learned that
Mississippi is not unique, that this crisis rages in states all across America.It rages in Nevada, where young expectant mothers cannot find
ob/gyns.It rages in Florida, where
children in the extremities cannot find pediatric neurosurgeons.And it rages here in Pennsylvania, where the elderly who have come to
depend on their orthopedic surgeons are being told that those trusted doctors
are moving to states where medical liability costs are less and practicing
medicine is affordable and less risky. The crisis, Mr. Chairman, is
insidious, like termites in the structure of a home.They get into the woodwork, but you cannot see the damage.The walls of the house remain beautiful.You don't know what's going on just beneath the surface.At least not for a season.Then,
one day you go to hang a shelf and the whole wall comes down; everything is
destroyed. Before July 5th, I was like most Americans,
completely unaware that just below the surface of our nation's health care
delivery system, serious damage was being done by excessive and frivolous
litigation - litigation that was forcing liability costs beyond the ability of
doctors to pay.I had heard about
some of the frivolous cases and, of course, the awards that climbed into the
hundreds of millions of dollars.And
like most Americans I shook my head and said, "Someone hit the lottery." I did not know the damage it
was doing to the system.You see,
Congressman Greenwood, it's not until your spouse needs a specialist,
or you're the expectant mother who needs an ob/gyn, or it's your
child who needs a pediatric neurosurgeon, that you realize there are termites at
work beneath the surface. From my perspective, sitting
here today, this problem far exceeds any other challenge facing America's
health care - even the challenge of the uninsured.The uninsured can go to the emergency room and find care.Hospitals will not turn them away.But
if doctors are unable to practice - if they're unable to provide the
expertise they've trained years to provide - then there's nothing anyone
can do.My family had insurance
when Tony was injured.We had good
insurance. What we didn't
have was a doctor. Mr. Greenwood, I know of your efforts to see America through this crisis.I know of your legislation, and that it's important to the President.I know of the priority you and Congress and many in the Senate are placing upon doing something. and doing it now.Today, I pledge to you my complete support.It is my prayer that no woman - or anyone else - anywhere will ever have to go through what I've gone through, and what I continue to go through every day with my two beautiful children and a husband I dearly love.
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