Tell Congress to Focus on Real Reform With all the shouting matches about health care reform at town hall meetings, it can be hard to know where the rhetoric stops and where the truth begins. In the interest of promoting public health and safety, Public Citizen has released a report showing that basic patient safety reforms could save 85,000 lives and $35 billion every year. But instead of focusing on real reform in the health care bill, members of Congress have been distracted by health industry lobbyists.  The Senate is considering "alternatives" to our right to hold negligent providers accountable when they cause severe, permanent injuries or death.   In fact, the woefully inadequate health care bill introduced by Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) already endorses money for experiments with substitutes for the civil justice system." Please take a moment to email your members of Congress that you want real health care reform that saves lives and money.  Tell them to say no to health industry lobbyists seeking more immunity for negligent providers. Read our Back to Basics health care reform report to learn more. Please take a moment to add your own words to the email below. This greatly increases the likelihood that your message will make a difference! You can also ask your representative and senators to support the basic health care reforms by phone by calling the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Let us know how it goes!

November 21, 2009 Subject: Thank you for taking on the difficult job of trying to pass health care reform. I am writing to urge you to ignore the baseless distractions that are pervading the health care debates. Specifically, I am referring to medical malpractice litigation. Any health care reform bill should tackle the needs of the uninsured and ways to improve patient safety. Malpractice reform is a completely different matter that aims to let negligent providers off the hook for their serious and sometimes deadly mistakes. The real problems in our health care system are the lack of attention to patient safety and the high numbers of medical errors, which cause 44,000 to 98,000 deaths a year, and are a significant contributor to rising health care costs. I also urge you to consider the costs of malpractice to the injured patient and to our society. If a patient is severely injured at the hands of a negligent doctor or hospital which is then freed from responsibility, the injured patient is likely to be left in financial ruin, with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical debt. If the patient unable to pay, the government and taxpayers would be left holding the bill for the patient’s continued medical care. Please read an important report from Public Citizen here: http://www.citizen.org/publications/release.cfm?ID=7700&secID=1720&catID=126. In our democracy and under our Constitution, wrongdoers are to be held responsible for their bad behavior in criminal and civil courts. So again, I urge you to remain focused on the real purpose of health care reform – improved health care for all – and to reject any proposal that aims to reduce accountability of the bad actors in our health care system. Thank you for listening to a constituent. I look forward to your reply. Sincerely, We will add your signature from the information you provide.		First Name* Last Name* Email* Street* Street 2 Street 3 City* State/Province* Select a state Alabama Alaska American Samoa Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware D.C. Florida Georgia Guam Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Northern Mariana Islands Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Puerto Rico Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virgin Islands Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Armed Forces (the) Americas Armed Forces Europe Armed Forces Pacific Alberta British Columbia Manitoba Newfoundland New Brunswick Nova Scotia Northwest Territories Nunavut Ontario Prince Edward Island Quebec Saskatchewan Yukon Territory Other Zip/Postal Code* Send an Email Send a Fax
When you click the "Send My Message!" button, Public Citizen will add you to our contact list so that we can communicate with you about the health care reform and other important issues. You can remove yourself from our list at any time.