Senator Bill Frist (R-TN)

Senate Republicans failed on April 6 to muster enough votes to force the United States Senate to consider their bill to limit pain-and-suffering damages that juries can award in medical malpractice suits. The vote was 49 to 48, 11 short of the 60 needed to defeat the threat of a filibuster by Democrats.

Indian-American physicians have long been fighting for such a curb on medical malpractice legislation. Advocates of the curb argue that such a measure will help reduce unnecessary lawsuits and reduce rising malpractice premiums that make it harder for doctors to practice.

Republicans earlier tried twice to push through their measure ---- once last year and again early this year. Undaunted by their third failure, they said they will bring it back to the Senate.

Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, was quoted in news reports as saying his party would not give up in getting measure sought by doctors and insurance companies through the Senate this year.

Meanwhile, a group opposing the bill complained to the Senate Ethics Committee against Frist, himself a heart surgeon, for his participation in the debate as the H.C.A. Hospital chain and its subsidiary malpractice insurer, Health Care Indemnity, founded by the Frist family stood to benefit from the measure.

(Compiled from news reports by Jyotirmoy Datta)