Subject: Immediate Action Requested on Medical Malpractice!
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 09:48:27 -0500
From: "Congress Watchdog" <CONGRESSWATCHDOG@citizen.org>

The health care industry and its congressional allies are once againgearing up to gut the nation's medical malpractice laws.   At the center of this year's fight is President Bush's outrageous call for a $250,000 cap on "pain and suffering" damage awards for those who have been injured - or even killed - as a result of medical negligence.  Such awards compensate people for the pain and suffering they endure for paralysis, traumatic brain injury, blindness, loss of sexual function or reproductive ability and more.

Last year, your efforts were critical to our success in defeating similar anti-patient legislation. But the doctors' lobby and insurance industry are back -- and more determined than ever to escape responsibility for their own wrongdoing by blaming the temporary spike in medical malpractice insurance premiums for some doctors on those who have already been victimized by negligence.

Please tell Congress: Survivors of medical negligence didn't cause the current spike in insurance rates - and restricting their rights to be fully compensated in court won't do anything to solve it. Rather, the real solution to rising malpractice premiums lies in reforming the insurance industry and disciplining the small number of dangerous doctors.

To send an urgent fax message to your U.S. Representative, click here: http://www.citizen.org/fax/background.cfm?ID=128&source=2

Then please return to this email to send an urgent fax to your U.S. Senators by clicking here: http://www.citizen.org/fax/background.cfm?ID=125&source=2

Thank you for your support.

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