As part of its mission to educate the public about the cost and consequences of lawsuit abuse and challenge those who abuse our legal system, TALA is proud to announce the creation of a blog on its website. The blog will serve as the online voice of the Texas legal reform movement and continue to tell the story of how legal reform has improved the Texas economy and created jobs.
In fact, TALA isn’t the only one to note the link between legal reform and the sustained upswing in the Texas economy. Recently, Chuck DeVore spoke at a breakfast hosted by Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse of Central Texas. DeVore, a visiting senior fellow in the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Center for Fiscal Policy and former state legislator in California, discussed themes from a soon-to-be-released book he co-authored, The Texas Model.
The book analyzes the drivers of Texas’ economic success, and concludes that it is the result of low taxes, light regulatory burdens, and smart legal reforms. DeVore noted that in 2003, when Gov. Perry declared the medical liability situation a state-wide crisis, Texas doctors paid more for medical malpractice insurance than doctors in New York, a state with a well-deserved reputation for driving doctors to other states due to its liability laws.
Now, due to a number of common sense legal reforms, doctors in Texas pay just half of what New York doctors pay for medical malpractice insurance and the medical liability insurance rate is down 27.5% since 2003, according to the Texas Department of Insurance.
For the average Texan, that means greater access to care as more doctors come to Texas, many of whom are choosing to practice in rural and underserved areas and in high-risk specialties such as pediatric neurosurgery, obstetrics and emergency care. Texans also benefit as area hospitals re-invest their liability savings to expand services, improve patent care and increase charity care in their local communities.
The numbers don’t lie: legal reform has worked for Texas. It’s no coincidence that Texas leads the nation in passing smart legal reforms and is ranked #1 in the nation for its business climate. Given the state of the U.S. economy, let’s hope other states follow the Texas model and pass legal reforms to boost job creation.
