Lucas,
The response to our petition to Governor Andrew Cuomo has been awesome.
Already, more than 1,300 New Yorkers have signed the petition calling for Cuomo and state lawmakers to drop parts of the budget proposal that take away patients' rights.
Cuomo's proposal would deny New Yorkers access to legal remedies when they are injured or killed as a result of negligent medical care.
Help us reach 2,000 signatures by tomorrow. Sign our emergency petition to Cuomo right now and urge him to reject a budget that takes away patients' rights.
We're delivering the petition on Monday (tomorrow!), so please sign and forward this message to other New Yorkers today!
Cuomo's proposal seeks to burden New York's malpractice victims with an inhumane, one-size-fits-all limit on compensation. The majority of the burden will be felt by those most catastrophically injured, as well as children, women, seniors and low-income patients.
Proponents claim such measures are all about cutting costs -- a claim that the empirical research disproves.(1)
Texas enacted similar restrictions in 2003. Instead of saving taxpayers' money, their health insurance costs have doubled.
Sign the petition: www.citizen.org/cuomo-petition .
If the state government wants to decrease medical costs, the top priority should be reducing deaths and injuries caused by unnecessary medical errors, not bargaining away New Yorkers' legal rights.
Thanks for all you do,
Rick Claypool
Public Citizen's Online Action Team
action@citizen.org
1. Public Citizen report, "Liability Limits in Texas Fail to Curb Medical Costs." December 17, 2009. www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=2860