ASSOCIATED
INDUSTRIES APPLAUDS
MEDICAL-LIABILITY AGREEMENT
August 8, 2003
Associated Industries of Florida (AIF) commends Governor Jeb Bush, Senate
President Jim King (R-Jacksonville), and House Speaker Johnnie Byrd (R-PlantCity)
for their leadership on developing compromise legislation to address the
medical-liability crisis that is gripping the state. Also deserving recognition
are Senators Tom Lee (R-Brandon) and Rod Smith (D-Gainesville) and Representatives
Dudley Goodlette (R-Naples) and Allan Bense (R-Panama City) who devoted long hours
of thoughtful debate to crafting a compromise on this difficult issue.
“The compromise lays a strong foundation for the future,” said Jon L.
Shebel, AIF’s president and CEO. “From the beginning, AIF supported a $250,000
California-style cap, but we believe that the House and Senate have struck a
bargain that will provide significant relief in the long term.”
Art Simon, AIF’s senior vice president for governmental affairs, helped to
shepherd the last major medical-liability reform bills through the Legislature in
mid 1980s. “We’re now in the third generation of medical-liability crises,”
he said. “While we specifically declined to enact a hard cap in 1985 and 1988,
with hindsight I believe that we could have avoided or ameliorated the problems we’re
facing today if the cap provisions of this compromise bill had gone into effect 15
years ago. With the passage of this legislation, we hopefully should be able to
avoid a repeat of this dilemma another 15 years down the road.”
Shebel also said, “What we’ve got is a compromise that may not be perfect,
but in lawmaking, a good compromise is usually better than no compromise at all.”
Associated Industries of Florida is a statewide employers association
representing 11,000 businesses that range from large multinational corporations to
small family-owned enterprises. AIF is commonly known as “The Voice of Florida
Business.”
