Barney Frank touts tort reform, higher co-pays as ways to trim budget

Liberal firebrand Barney Frank (D-Mass.) broke with party orthodoxy on Tuesday by calling for restrictions on lawsuits against doctors and hospitals that experts think contribute to the nation's growing healthcare costs.

"I also am ready, as a liberal, to look at the whole question of malpractice and liability reform," Frank said during an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program, according to a transcript. "People who are injured ought to be compensated, but I do think that that's something that I would throw in if we had an otherwise overall compromise [on the national debt], because I recognize everybody's got to give something to get this."

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that caps on malpractice damages could shave up to .5 percent off national healthcare spending every year. Tort lawyers strongly oppose such caps, however, and contribute disproportionately to Democrats.

Frank said it was important not to restrict the conversation just to Medicare.

"The first thing I want to say is I do not want there to be a Medicare-only solution, because I think you then have access problems for people as to whether they can get Medicare or not," he said. "Then we look at the whole service delivery issue."

Frank also recommended increasing co-pays along with income, and pitched the controversial idea of allowing patients to deny life-sustaining care.

"I think it's time for us to say that if people at the end of their lives want to simply say, 'OK, this is it; this is not a meaningful existence' — I'm not talking about assisted suicide, I'm talking about the Schiavo case sort of situation where you don't force care on people who don't want it and whose guardians don't want them to have it," Frank said. "You know, we spend an awful lot of Medicaid on the end of life. And this is not death panels; this is not the government telling you you don't get any more. This is the government not telling you you have to get this medical care whether you want it or not."