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CHARLESTON (AP)- Instead of getting a tax break, doctors would have to pay $1,000 each under the medical malpractice bill amended and passed Tuesday by the Senate Finance Committee.
Hospitals and private insurers would similarly fork over a one-time assessment, all to raise $13 million to jump-start the bill's doctor-run insurance program.
The bill also was amended to loan the physician's mutual $21 million from the tobacco settlement fund.
The committee did not touch the damage caps and lawsuit limits passed by the House and tweaked by Senate Judiciary. But the industry-based alliance pushing for these measures was slow to endorse the committee's financial changes Tuesday.
"They're somewhat disappointing," said Steve Haid of the West Virginia Care Coalition. "In tandem, they make the bill far less attractive."
Gov. Bob Wise wants lawmakers to offer some sort of immediate relief to doctors burdened by high insurance costs.
"They need help, and they need it now," press secretary Amy Shuler Goodwin said.
Wise proposed giving doctors $20 million from the tobacco fund to help them pay for their insurance. But when it took up the bill last month, the House replaced that measure with a personal income tax credit.
The Senate Finance Committee, in turn, scrapped that credit after learning it could allow doctors making $250,000 or more a year to avoid paying any income taxes.
The committee also was told the state stood to lose between $15.8 million and $19.2 million a year from the three-year credit.
"We could take the same amount of money and start a mutual," said Sen. Robert Plymale, D-Wayne. "We could do it for the doctors without taxpayer dollars."
The bill was amended to charge $1,000 from doctors, $2,500 from insurance companies and up to $300,000 from hospitals. The assessments would raise $4 million, $3 million and $6 million from each of the three groups, the committee estimates.
Senate Minority Leader Vic Sprouse, R-Kanawha, was the lone holdout against financing the mutual insurance company this way.
"We're taking away the credit and now we're assessing $4 million on top of that?" Sprouse said, citing the doctors' share. "Is that the essence of what we're doing?"
"You got it," replied Chairman Walt Helmick, D-Pocahontas.
Helmick said these and other amendments passed Tuesday will help West Virginia get out of the insurance business.
Under a special plan crafted by lawmakers in 2001, the state Board of Risk and Insurance Management now insures more than 1,100 doctors who could not otherwise get coverage. The bill would replace that state program with a private, doctor run mutual company.
Senate Finance amended the bill to dedicate existing taxes on insurers toward restoring the $21 million to the tobacco fund over four years. The mutual would have to pay that tax, while still repaying the startup money as it would a regular business loan.
Also, the mutual could only enroll doctors in the state and bordering counties until that loan is paid off.
The committee also set a Sept. 1, 2004 deadline for the state Supreme Court to rule on the bill's caps on damages for pain and suffering. The bill allows the mutual to dissolve and give its business back to the state if the court voids the cap.
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