Your Medical Society
Med Mal Rate Freeze Announced
Due to the extraordinary collective efforts of New York’s physician community, the New York State Legislature has approved a bill presented to it by the Governor prohibiting any increase in medical liability premiums during the period between July 1, 2008 and June 30, 2009. Moreover, the bill prohibits for the same period the imposition of any surcharge on premiums to satisfy any deficiencies occurring because of inadequate premiums in any prior years. In effect these two actions freeze the rate that was in effect for your policy last year! Consequently, as a result of this legislation, you will have a 0% premium increase for 2008-2009!
Success in staving off a devastating rate hike would not have been possible without the help and support of county medical societies, specialty societies and thousands of individual physicians who responded to our many requests to actively lobby legislators and legislative leaders. We thank all of you for this outstanding success.
We also thank Governor David Paterson, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver for their leadership and perseverance in addressing this difficult issue.
The road that lies ahead for physicians in this State will include countless hours, days, weeks and months of continued advocacy for meaningful tort reform. Without real changes in New York’s laws, we will face with the same circumstances next year that we were left to grapple with this summer. While taking great comfort in the tremendous relief we received today, we must resolve to stay-the-course and continue to push for real change.
Thank you again for your tremendous support.
