Robert Warren Painter

Legislative Work

On April 14, 2009, I testified before the Texas House State Affairs Committee on proposed legislation to the Texas Advance Directives of Act of 1999.  The bill would have substantially altered the current system that allows hospitals and doctors to override patient and family wishes, and terminate care and nutrition 10 days after an ethics committee proceeding called a "futility review."  The bill would have create an expedited system of trial court and appellate review that would level the playing field for patients and their families.  I have handled many of these cases and unveiled a website, at the hearing, documenting what typically happens:  www.survivinghospitals.com.

In 2007-2008, I testified before the Texas Senate in support of legislation amending the Texas Advance Directives of Act of 1999, which in its current form allows hospitals and doctors to substitute their end-of-life decision for those of patients and there families, and to claim immunity from suit in so doing.  When I testified, I played a voicemail recording that one my clients received from a Houston hospital administrator, in which the administrator told him to get his father out of the hospital or they would "send him on to glory."  The senators looked quite surprised when they heard that.

Nonprofit Work

Through Bellwether Forum, I have lectured all over America as well as in emerging democracies like Mongolia and Poland, on free market public policy and ethics.