78B-3-402 - Legislative findings and declarations -- Purpose of act. - Utah Statutes

78B-3-402. Legislative findings and declarations -- Purpose of act.
(1) The Legislature finds and declares that the number of suits and claims for damagesand the amount of judgments and settlements arising from health care has increased greatly inrecent years. Because of these increases the insurance industry has substantially increased thecost of medical malpractice insurance. The effect of increased insurance premiums and increasedclaims is increased health care cost, both through the health care providers passing the cost ofpremiums to the patient and through the provider's practicing defensive medicine because heviews a patient as a potential adversary in a lawsuit. Further, certain health care providers arediscouraged from continuing to provide services because of the high cost and possibleunavailability of malpractice insurance.
(2) In view of these recent trends and with the intention of alleviating the adverse effectswhich these trends are producing in the public's health care system, it is necessary to protect thepublic interest by enacting measures designed to encourage private insurance companies tocontinue to provide health-related malpractice insurance while at the same time establishing amechanism to ensure the availability of insurance in the event that it becomes unavailable fromprivate companies.
(3) In enacting this act, it is the purpose of the Legislature to provide a reasonable time inwhich actions may be commenced against health care providers while limiting that time to aspecific period for which professional liability insurance premiums can be reasonably andaccurately calculated; and to provide other procedural changes to expedite early evaluation andsettlement of claims.

Renumbered and Amended by Chapter 3, 2008 General Session