LEE COUNTY, Fla. – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday held a news conference where he pledged to veto a bill that seeks to repeal the state’s so-called “Free Kill” law.
Speaking at a hospital near Fort Myers, the governor claimed that the bill would lead to a flood of malpractice lawsuits and, in tow, higher medical costs for Floridians.
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“What would this legislation do for the cost of health care in Florida, access to care in Florida, and our ability to recruit and and keep physicians? (...) It’s their judgment — it’s also my judgment —that if this legislation would be enacted, it would lead to higher costs for Floridians. It would lead to less access to care for Floridians. It would make it harder for us to keep, recruit and maintain physicians in the state of Florida, and we need more as it is now,” DeSantis said, going on to suggest that lawmakers could submit a similar bill in the future which holds physicians directly accountable via regulatory action and places caps on the amount of damages, as well as on what attorneys can be paid out.
The “Free Kill” law, also known as the Florida Wrongful Death Act, was approved in 1990. While it allows the spouse or certain children of a patient who dies due to medical malpractice to pursue damages, Subsection 8 states that these damages are not recoverable by adult children, meaning those over 25 years old cannot pursue damages in such cases. The parents of an adult child are also forbidden to recover damages “with respect to claims for medical negligence as defined by s.766.106(1)," the law states.
The governor announced his intent to oppose the legislation in prior remarks, commenting on it after signing a bill in Ridge Manor earlier this month which bans fluoride in water systems statewide.
“What that is going to do is that is going to (cause) a flood of lawsuits against practitioners and against hospitals. Malpractice premiums are going to go up. It’s going to be harder to recruit positions into Florida and, ultimately, healthcare costs will go up,” DeSantis said at the bill-signing event. “What I suggested that was done — and there was some support of it in the Senate — is that if you had caps on the amount of damages that people could seek. That would disincentivize a lot of jackpot justice.”
HB 6017, AKA Recovery of Damages for Medical Negligence Resulting in Death, was filed earlier this year in the latest attempt by Florida lawmakers to erase the law’s restrictive provision, passing both chambers.
“I have heard heartbreaking stories from families who have lost someone due to medical negligence, stories of parents who buried their children with no accountability, of sons and daughters left with nothing but grief and unanswered questions,” said the bill’s co-sponsor, state Rep. Dana Trabulsy (R-St. Lucie). “These families deserve justice, and no one should be left powerless just because of a loophole that protects negligent providers instead of patients.”
Dr. Joseph Ladapo, Florida’s surgeon general and one of DeSantis’ guest speakers at Thursday’s news conference, said in part, “there simply isn’t enough justice to go around.”
“Patients by and large know that things don’t always go well and most patients are actually very understanding as long as the physician really has humility and humanism around, but when doctors are jerks, that’s when they get in trouble, that’s probably the biggest predictor of legal action,” Ladapo said. “That’s an issue for the medical profession to work on. I mean, that’s an important issue in the medical profession, undoubtedly, and many of us have seen many examples of poor bedside manner, but even that aside, the issue of justice — legal justice, economic damages, non-economic damages — there simply isn’t enough justice to go around and have the system be able to stand up on its two feet. It’s just not possible."
Watch the news conference again in the video player below or by clicking here.