Senate Bill No. 634
(By Senators Kessler, Minard, Edgell, Bowman, McKenzie, Anderson,
Facemyer, Hunter, Deem, Boley, Sharpe, Helmick, Fanning,
Prezioso, Unger, Ross, Minear, Bailey and McCabe)
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[Introduced March 26, 2001; referred to the Committee on
Government Organization.]
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A BILL to amend article twenty-b, chapter thirty-three of the code
of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as
amended, by adding thereto a new section, designated section
ten, relating to establishing a medical malpractice insurance
study task force.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That article twenty-b, chapter thirty-three of the code of
West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, be
amended by adding thereto a new section, designated section ten, to
read as follows:
ARTICLE 20B. RATES AND MALPRACTICE INSURANCE POLICIES.
§33-20B-10. Medical malpractice insurance study task force.
The governor is hereby requested to appoint a task force to
secure information, assemble the same and make its findings and
recommendations to the Legislature regarding all of those factors
affecting the cost to medical providers of medical malpractice
insurance.
(a) The task force shall consist of eleven persons and shall
include in its membership the insurance commissioner or his or her
designee, one licensed West Virginia physician, one West Virginia
hospital administrator, one attorney selected from the active list
of the West Virginia state bar, one practicing attorney who is a
member of the West Virginia trial lawyers association, one seated
member of each of the houses of the West Virginia Legislature, one
representative of the medical malpractice insurance industry, one
consumer rights advocate and one professor of law from West
Virginia University with an expertise in insurance law.
(b) The task force shall make its written report to the
Legislature at its two thousand two regular session.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to provide the Legislature
with sufficient data to enable it to deliberate any legislative action that the report might indicate in alleviating the high cost
of medical malpractice insurance.
§33-20B-10 is new; therefore, strike-throughs and
underscoring have been omitted.