News

Assembly veto override fails

After a largely party-line vote Thursday, the Wisconsin State Assembly ultimately upheld Gov. Jim Doyle's veto of medical malpractice caps.

If overridden, the legislation — called Assembly Bill 766 — would have limited the maximum amount of non-economic damages that can be awarded in cases of medical malpractice.

Assembly Speaker Rep. John Gard, R-Peshtigo, and other Republicans expressed disappointment in the Democrats who voted against the override, specifically three members who originally voted in favor of the caps.

"A Democrat who was on the committee that created a bipartisan bill decided to vote against it because his governor told him to," Gard communications director Bob Delaporte said, referring to Rep. Sheldon Wasserman, D-Milwaukee. "He chose his governor over his patients, and that's really disappointing."

Wasserman is a practicing doctor, who, according to Delaporte, served on the committee that drafted AB 766. Wasserman, however, denies ever being a part of the committee.

Republican lawmakers view the defeated legislation as essential to maintaining the quality of the state's health care industry. Many worry unlimited pain and suffering awards will cause skilled medical professionals to leave the state.

Many Democrats, however, charge a cap on non-economic damages is unconstitutional and unfair to the rights of victims of medical malpractice.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned a similar cap last year, ruling an arbitrary monetary limit on pain and suffering awards was unconstitutional.

"I made this change because I realized after talking to the different health-care groups and to the legal community that this bill that we had before us today … was going to be declared unconstitutional," Wasserman said.

Wasserman said he does, however, believe in the theory of caps on malpractice lawsuits and supports an upcoming bill seeking to limit awards.

"We need a real bill that's bipartisan [and] that's constitutional," Wasserman said. "We can do that [with] another draft that is ready to go."

The Assembly fell three votes short of the two-thirds vote necessary to move the bill to the Senate for reconsideration. In Wisconsin, a two-thirds vote of both the Assembly and Senate is required to override the governor's veto.