Health Care Reform Hot Topic in 2009

AUSTIN - A controversial health care reform plan is getting its five-year checkup.

In 2003, Governor Rick Perry asked lawmakers to approve a controversial health care reform bill. The legislation hammered malpractice lawsuits, which at the time were hammering doctors.

To get to a hospital, from their home in Kyle, Edna Lopez and Julian Castillo, first have to get to I-35. From there, its either a road trip to Austin or San Marcos.

"We stay long over there to see a doctor, about 3-4 hours," Castillo said.

But, with a new hospital being built within view from their front porch, a doctor will literally be just around the corner.

"It will be nice having a hospital here in Kyle; finally we are going to have something here," Lopez said.

The new hospital in Kyle will be called Seton Medical Center Hays. It will open this fall. The hospital is one of several currently under construction or completed within the past 5 years; a building boom credited in part to legislation passed in 2003.

"We changed the medical malpractice laws in order to stimulate doctors not leaving in Texas, but to encourage doctors to come to Texas," said State Senator Troy Fraser.

The Republican from Marble Falls says the reform was the right prescription. Since 2003, 76 Texas counties gained additional emergency physicians, and 24 counties that did not have ER doctors now do. Among those is Dr. Mounang Desai. In 2007 he and several other doctors opened a new hospital northwest of Houston.

"Instead of having one hospital they had to drive 10 or 15 miles to, they feel like they have a hospital in their back yard essentially," Dr. Desai said.

Tort reform may bring more doctors to the emergency room, but the health care industry is still considered to be in crisis. That is why
more reforms are being proposed. On the state level, a plan is being pitched to compensate Medicaid doctors based on wellness and preventative programs, rather than illnesses treated.

On the federal side, President Obama pushing a plan to transfer all medical records into a national electronic database. Supporters say it will improve care and cut overall costs despite an estimated $100 billion price tag. Doctors like Robert Greenberg of Temple say it all sounds promising, but also a little scary.

"What medicine comes down to is a physician and a patient. Any thing that comes between the physician and patient, as a rule is bad," he said.

The final diagnosis of all this reform may depend on just how much red tape is cut.