Two Lincoln County lawmakers voiced relief and approvalfollowing Monday’s passage of medical malpractice tort reformlegislation while a third local legislator repeated concerns aboutstate court access issues.

“I thought it was a good day,” said Dist. 39 Sen. CindyHyde-Smith, who was among 41 senators to support the bill.”Hopefully, this is what we need.”

Dist. 92’s Dr. Jim Barnett, one of 87 representatives to backthe legislation, said he was “very pleased” with the bill’spassage. The bill was held in the House on a procedural motion tobe discussed again Tuesday before it could be sent to Gov. RonnieMusgrove.

“It’s not a perfect bill, but it’s much better than what wehad,” Barnett said. “The people are much better off than what wehad.”

Barnett said he hoped insurance companies would now followthrough with coverage for the state’s medical community. Hyde-Smithexpressed concerns that the bill would not take effect until Jan.1, 2003, which left the door open to more lawsuits in the monthsahead.

“At least we’re on the right track, in my opinion,” the senatorsaid about benefits of the bill.

Dist. 53 Rep. Bobby Moak said the medical community did a goodjob with the legislation. He, however, voted against the billbecause of an overwhelming possibility that the legislation wouldsurrender citizens’ rights to bring claims in state court.

“The big question I have is how the federal courts willinterpret the language affecting people’s rights to bring claims instate court,” Moak said. “If those claims are federalized, I have areal problem with that.”

Moak said he supported a move to send the bill back for furtherstudy to address that aspect of the bill. If that had been fixed,he said he could have supported the legislation.

Hyde-Smith said there were high emotions and hot tempers allaround the Capitol Monday. She mentioned that a doctor and severalothers had to be removed.

“There were some furious trial lawyers,” said Hyde-Smith.

Moak said the discussions dealt with changing long-standingstate laws and the process was very involved. Although there were alot of nay-sayers in the summer when a special committee wasappointed to study medical tort reform, he said the process workedand something was accomplished.

“I guess they’re eating their words this morning,” Moaksaid.

Musgrove has said he would now expand the special session callto allow lawmakers to deal with general civil justice tort reformwhich would affect businesses.

Barnett hesitated and chuckled when asked to predict how thegeneral tort reform discussion would go.

“I don’t believe it will be quite as traumatic and drawn out asmedical tort reform,” Barnett said.

Moak and Hyde-Smith expected a short recess before lawmakersstart to tackle the second issue.

“I can’t imagine a bigger fight than what we’ve just beenthrough,” Hyde-Smith said. “But no doubt, it’s going to be abattle.”

The senator, however, expected the issue would be addressedbecause of high public interest and pressure to produce tort reformresults. She repeated her approval of the medical tort reformlegislation.

“I think we’ve got a good bill,” Hyde-Smith said. “Hopefully,it’s what it will take to fix the problem.”