DeSantis vetoes medical malpractice-related bill
Gov. Ron DeSantis made an appearance in Southwest Florida Thursday morning to veto a bill regarding medical malpractice and “Free Kill” law.
DeSantis was joined by Florida Department of Health Surgeon General Dr. Joe Ladapo at Gulf Coast Medical Center in Fort Myers, where House Bill 6017 was formally vetoed.
The bill was related to the recovery of damages for medical negligence resulting in death. The bill would have removed a provision that precluded certain persons from recovering damages for medical negligence.
According to the bill’s summary, “…there is a limited exception by which neither an adult child (25+) of an unmarried person who dies due to medical negligence, nor the parents of an adult child (25+) who dies due to medical negligence, may recover non-economic damages.
The bill repeals this exception and thus provides that, where a wrongful death occurs as a result of medical negligence, a decedent’s adult children may recover noneconomic damages if there is no surviving spouse and provides that the parents of an adult decedent may recover noneconomic damages if there is no surviving spouse or surviving minor or adult children.”
The bill was voted on by the Senate on May 1 and passed 33 yeas to four nays.
DeSantis said with a cap, there would be incentive for litigation to be brought in the state of Florida.
“Many of them probably won’t be successful, but even then, you can probably get a settlement,” DeSantis said. “Again, even if you haven’t done anything wrong, there’s incentive to settle because it’s very costly to go through with all of this.
“If this bill became law, I do think the cost would be borne by the physicians who would potentially flee the state, to people that wouldn’t have as much access to care, as then also to the costs that would go up as a result of it.”
DeSantis said in speaking with healthcare experts, it was “unanimous” that the bill as proposed would bring negative impacts to healthcare in Florida.
“It’s insane to have a system with no caps on non-economic damages and expect for that system to continue to sustain itself and function as it was intended to function, which is to provide care for patients,” Ladapo said.
The state surgeon general said there’s no doubt the bill would hurt the state, the doctors, and patients.
“What you want is a doctor who is thinking about your interests when they’re providing care for you, not about the risk of liability,” he said.
“In addition to harming (quality of care), it’s going to make things even more expensive. Who needs that? This system is already unrecognizable in terms of how distorted it is. Healthcare is so expensive in this country.”
Lee Health President and CEO Dr. Larry Antonucci said Lee Health supports the decision from DeSantis to veto on many fronts.
“Most of all, access,” Antonucci said. “We have an access challenge here in the state of Florida, we’ve all experienced it. This is just a bill that will make that worse. Any barrier you put between patients and physicians and hospitals is not the right decision to make, and this bill does that. It will clearly increase costs. It’ll affect emergency services.
“It will be a deterrent to the one thing that is critical for all of us, and that is the recruitment of physicians to this state. We are recruiting literally hundreds of physicians every year, and this is a deterrent. There are other places people are going to want to go because of the risk of malpractice.
“People here in Southwest Florida and throughout the state deserve better. They deserve a strong sustainable healthcare system, and this bill just simply doesn’t do that. It’s focused on legalities. It’s focused on finance. But it’s not focused on the patient.”