AG defends malpractice reform law

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott took legal action to defend Texas' recently-enacted medical malpractice reform laws.

The laws controlled the rising medical insurance premiums by issuing a 10-year statute of repost on lawsuits. In other words, it stops people from filing medical malpractice lawsuits more than a decade after the act that is the basis of the lawsuit.

"The Legislature concluded that indeterminate and unpredictable liability regimes drive up the cost of health care and reduce access to physicians," said Solicitor General James Ho in a Supreme Court briefing.

However, the reform does not limit a person's right to file a medical malpractice lawsuit.

"The Legislature struck a fair balance between the rights of plaintiffs to obtain redress for injuries and the rights of physicians and other health care providers from having to litigate state claims," read the brief. "The balance struck by the Legislature was reasonable and constitutional."

The reasoning for the brief was because "evidence grows stale; eyewitnesses move; records become lost; and parties receive assurances that courts will not re-examine acts from the distant past that have long since faded from memory."