Wisconsin mobilizes after liability cap is overturned

Lawmakers and health leaders form a task force, and a Web site encourages support for liability reform.

By Mike Norbut, AMNews staff. Sept. 12, 2005.

Wisconsin legislators are creating a task force to investigate protecting health care for the state's residents in light of a recent state Supreme Court decision that threw out a 10-year-old cap on noneconomic damages in medical liability cases.

Obstetrician-gynecologist Clyde M. Chumbley, MD, CEO of Medical Associates Health Centers in Menomonee Falls, Wis., is one of 10 task force members. Health care lawyers and hospital executives also will join five state representatives on the panel that State Assembly Speaker John Gard is forming. David Olson, president and CEO of Bay Area Medical Center, Marinette, Wis.; Ralph Topinka, vice president and general counsel of Mercy Alliance, Janesville, Wis.; and health care attorneys David Strifling of Madison, Wis., and Mary Wolverton of Milwaukee also have been named to the group.

Physicians are worried that the court decision will destabilize the state's medical liability market, leading to rising insurance premiums. That could force some physicians to leave the state, retire early or restrict their practices to low-risk patients, leaving some patients without access to care, some legislators said.

Wisconsin had a cap on noneconomic damages for about 20 years. The first law passed in 1985 and expired in 1991. The second cap, which the court recently ruled on, took effect in 1995 and stood at $445,775.