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February 14, 2006
TO: Senate health care, judiciary staff
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a non-partisan professional association of physicians in all specialties representing hundreds of thousands of patients, urges you to act quickly to pass S. 852, the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution (FAIR) Act, and kill the budget point of order raised by Sen. Ensign. The system is badly broken beyond repair, and the budget point of order raised by Sen. Ensign is a cynical, procedural attempt to kill the bill and cheat thousands of patients from fair compensation, while allowing trial lawyers to continue to hold the purse strings and call the shots. Sen. Ensign claims that the legislation would increase spending by more than $5 billion in a 10-year period are made moot by the offsets in the bill. The incoming private revenue from the companies that will be funding the entire program established by S. 852 will offset all spending. The net result is that there is no government or taxpayer liability of any kind in this bill. Zero. Sick victims must also do battle with our absurd asbestos litigation system. The system is so woefully overwhelmed by claims that sick victims must wait years before seeing a dime in compensation. Sick victims often can't afford to wait that long. The system is failing the people who need it to succeed the most. Unscrupulous individuals, including doctors, are claiming injuries even though there are none. Further, attorneys troll for class action members in frequent television ads, with only "possible exposure" to asbestos -- not real harm, illness or injury -- required to join the class. It has been estimated that there are approximately 300,000 claims currently pending. But a recent study uncovered that as many as 90% of these claims may have been filed by unimpaired individuals. On top of that, media reports have asserted that 9 out of 10 X-rays presented in trial by plaintiffs show no signs of disease. Clearly, the system is being abused – it's being abused by opportunistic trial lawyers who are making millions off the current system. This fraud must be abolished. The FAIR Act will end the systematic abuse of the system by trial lawyers by cutting out their financial incentives. Under the FAIR Act, claims will be addressed through a victims' compensation fund that will operate outside of the tort system. Sick victims would get the help they need quickly. Victims who are the sickest – those with deadly mesothelioma – would get expedited help. And victims would be able to keep the entire sum of their compensation packages, unlike the current system where they must spend nearly 40% paying for attorneys' fees. Without the millions of dollars up for grabs for trial lawyers, it is expected that much of the fraud inherent in the system will dissipate. If that's not enough, the FAIR Act would impose a fine and possible jail time on anyone found to have submitted a fraudulent claim. There is precedent for a victim compensation fund in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), a program that has been in effect since. Even the government itself lauds the merits of this streamlined system for victim compensation, as cited by the Department of Justice’s website: Everyone agrees that our asbestos litigation system is in dire straights. Sick victims need help sooner rather than later. We urge you to support patients, not lawyers. The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons calls on the Senate to pass this critical bill.
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