Will Governor Jim Doyle be able to transfer money from a fund designed to compensate victims of medical malpractice? Not if Republicans in the state Senate have anything to say about it. Oshkosh Senator Carol Roessler says hands off the Patients Compensation Fund . "This taking that the governor wants to do, would put this fund in deficit, potentially by June of 2008," says Roessler, who also notes that the effort by Doyle to raid the fund has been rejected twice before on a bipartisan basis.
GOP budget negotiators in the Assembly have proposed a $175 million transfer, and that will be considered in Monday's special session. No way, says Roessler.
Mark Grapentine with the Wisconsin Medical Society says the proposed transfer is "still 175 million too much." Doctors with the Medical Society have petitioned lawmakers to reject the fund transfer, and the Society has promised a lawsuit if it makes it into the final budget.
