Common Good Issues Statement in Response to Federal Announcement of $25 Million in Patient Safety and Medical Liability Projects

NEW YORK, June 11 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) today announced $25 million in grants to support states and health systems in implementing and evaluating approaches to patient safety and medical liability reform. President Obama called for the grants during his September 9, 2009 address to a joint session of Congress.

Philip K. Howard, Chair of Common Good, the legal reform coalition that has been leading the fight for medical justice reform, issued the following statement today in response to the announcement:

"While some of these projects might improve the process when patients are injured by medical error, none of them protects doctors from lawsuits where there were no errors. This unreliability drives defensive medicine. The Department of Health and Human Services is avoiding the reality that a new reliable system of medical justice is needed to end defensive medicine, a practice which contributes to the unsustainable growth in health care costs. The trial lawyers, a major contributor to Congressional campaign coffers, are the only beneficiary of the current system, and Washington appears unwilling to take them on, especially in an election year. We'll see in the fall elections if voters are still happy to have special interests put ahead of the public interest."

Common Good (www.commongood.org) is a nonpartisan legal reform coalition dedicated to restoring common sense to America. The Chair of Common Good is Philip K. Howard, a lawyer and author of Life Without Lawyers and The Death of Common Sense.

SOURCE Common Good