President Obama's Health Care Speech: Tort Reform Implications To Arbitration And Mediation
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From the Disputing Blog of Karl Bayer, Victoria VanBuren, and Holly Hayes. September 2009 |
President Obama’s speech (text is here and videos: Parts I, II, III, IV, and V) to a joint session of the U.S.Congress delivered on September 9, briefly mentioned a proposal to move the medical malpractice lawsuits out of the court system and before mediators, medical expert panels, and arbitrators. Although we have not been able to find out the details of the plan –it appears that it will be announced within a month– here is what some commentators are saying about it:
- States Could Offer Template for Revising Malpractice Law. Some states (Michigan, Minnesota, Kentucky, and others) have adopted a system that allows doctors to disclose medical errors and then enter into mediation to resolve the dispute. Other states (Florida, Georgia, and Illinois) require plaintiffs to have their case reviewed by physicians before the case is filed in court. (read more here)
- Obama Bucks the Trial Lawyers: Is Med-Mal Reform Imminent? A similar proposal on medical malpractice plan for tort reform was first outlined by President George W. Bush. According to this article, President Obama’s reform would be in the form of an executive order, not via legislation. (read more here)
- Tort Reform: Obama’s Silver Bullet. The reform on top of the list, “early disclosure” by doctors was proposed by then-Senator Obama and co-sponsored by Hillary Clinton. The second reform would require any Complainant to obtain an affidavit stating the the claim has merits. According to this report, both measures have been accepted by the House Energy and Commerce Committee as amendments to the health-reform legislation. (read more here)
- Read coverage at the BBC, WSJ, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post.
Stay tuned to Disputing for updates on this controversial topic!
Biography
Victoria VanBuren holds a B.B.A. in Finance from Southern Methodist University and a J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law. She focuses on intellectual property law and arbitration. Known as a "worker bee," she is an active legal blogger and is currently pursuing a degree in computer science. Prior to joining the team at Karl Bayer, Victoria worked at a boutique intellectual property law firm in Austin. She is well versed in computer hardware and programming languages: Assembly, C/C++, HTML, XHTML, XML, Perl, JavaScript, and PHP.
While in law school, Victoria was a Graduate Research Assistant for Professor John S. Dzienkowski, from The University of Texas at Austin. She was responsible for selecting cases for inclusion in the textbook International Petroleum Transactions. Victoria was particularly involved in researching the areas of international business litigation and arbitration. She also performed extensive research on political and economic risks within the context of international licensing agreements.
Having lived and studied in Mexico, Canada, and the U.S., Victoria brings a unique perspective to Karl Bayer. Right after high school, Victoria moved to Canada to study English and French. Born and raised in Mexico, she is a native Spanish speaker and a graduate of the Monterrey Institute of Technology (Instituto Tecnologico y the Estudios Superiores de Monterrey), where she concentrated in Physics and Mathematics.
Professional Activities
- American Bar Association, Young Lawyers
- American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA)
- Association of International Petroleum Negotiators (AIPN)
- National Hispanic Bar Association (NHBA)
- State Bar of Texas, Intellectual Property
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