Before the 2026 Regular Session has even begun, a proposed repeal of a unique Florida law that denies families legal recourse in medical malpractice cases is already heading to the House floor again.

This time, however, the proposal doesn’t have a companion bill in the Senate, a complication that may potentially imperil its future if it passes in the House and is sent to the upper chamber.

Members of the House Judiciary Committee voted 15-1 to advance HB 6003, which would delete a restriction in Florida Statutes blocking the award of noneconomic damages — grief, loss of companionship and the like — in cases of lethal medical negligence if the victim is 25 or older, unmarried and without children under 25.

Critics of the 35-year-old restriction have dubbed it “free kill,” as it shields careless providers while leaving surviving loved ones without the same court-based remedies available to others.

In recent years, support in Tallahassee for keeping it on the books has waned. Lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a repeal bill in May, only for Gov. Ron DeSantis to veto it later that month. He cited the bill’s lack of caps on damages, warning that it would cause malpractice insurance premiums to skyrocket.

But that argument doesn’t make much sense, considering keeping insurance premiums down was a key reason why the carve-out to Florida’s Wrongful Death Act was added in 1990, said Fort Pierce Republican Rep. Dana Trabulsy, the bill’s sponsor, who noted Wednesday that premiums here still rose to rates among the highest nationwide.

“This exception was created to bring down insurance rates related to medical malpractice, and that did not happen,” she said.

“We are very lucky to live in a state that offers such wonderful health care. However, this bill does not affect that. This bill affects a very small group of people whose families have no access to the courts.”

This marks the sixth time Trabulsy has carried the bill. Rep. Johanna López is a co-prime sponsor of the measure, which has co-sponsorship support from fellow Orlando Democratic Rep. Anna Eksamani.

More than half a dozen Floridians who lost adult family members to medical malpractice, both parents and children, appeared before the Committee to advocate for the bill’s passage. All had done so before, traveling to the Capitol on their own dime to face lawmakers and demand what they believe is right.

Among them: Travis Chreighton, Alyssa Crocker, Sabrina Davis, Cindy Jenkins, Lauren Korniyenko, Darcy McGill and Daryl Perritt, who is paying for a billboard at the Florida-Georgia line advising visitors that they’re entering the “Free Kill State of Florida,” a biting play on the Governor’s oft-used slogan, the “Free State of Florida.”

The Florida Alliance for Retired Americans and AARP Florida are also supporting the measure.

Kristy Meadows, a veterinarian, said her father, Ted, went to AdventHealth Dade City this year complaining of severe sickness, but staff there ignored his symptoms and test results, dismissing him without a diagnosis or treatment. He died days later.

Meadows said that, like many surviving family members, she didn’t know about “free kill” until it affected her. And like many in the medical field and those who represent them, she said, she hates the phrase “free kill,” though it does “effectively describe what this law does.”

She then urged members of the Committee to think of their loved ones who aren’t married and don’t have minor children.

“Think about that relationship that you have with them. That relationship, the companionship, the love, means nothing under this law,” she said, adding that she herself and many of her family members fall into that category.

“Under this law, our lives have no compensable value. And now that I know that, do I feel safe going to a hospital in Florida? I’m not really sure anymore. But it does not have to stay that way.”

Representatives from medical companies and industry associations appeared in opposition to the measure, including the U.S. Chamber of Congress, Associated Industries of Florida, The Doctors Company, Florida Insurance Council, Florida Medical Association, American Property Casualty Insurance Association, Florida Justice Reform Institute and the Florida chapters of the American College of Physicians and American College of Surgeons.

All cautioned against passing HB 6003 without caps on damages, like the $1 million limit state Senators narrowly rejected before passing its predecessor bill (HB 6017) on a 33-4 vote May 1. House members voted 104-6 for HB 6017 in late March.

Jacksonville Republican Sen. Clay Yarborough, who carried the bill’s Senate companion during the 2025 Session, told Florida Politics last month that he did not plan to refile the bill, since he expected DeSantis would veto it again.

Bob Johnson, a transplant to Florida who has lived in The Villages for the past five years, said Wednesday that passing HB 6003 would make already costly health care even more expensive and advised lawmakers to shun it.

The Florida Hospital Association’s General Counsel, Kristen Dobson, argued similarly. She said Florida is losing doctors at a rate double the national average as obstetricians, surgeons, internists and other specialists face some of the highest medical liability insurance rates in the country.

One major hospital in South Florida saw a 73% year-over-year increase in reinsurance and had to buy insurance through a “below A-rated carrier” for the first time, she said, attributing the strain felt across the state to liability issues.

Dobson pointed to so-called “nuclear verdicts” — jury-directed lawsuit awards of $10 million or more — she said are “becoming increasingly common and significantly destabilize the insurance market.” Just two months ago, a jury awarded nearly $71 million in a single case.

“The increasing threat of nuclear verdicts holds hospitals and health care providers hostage, forcing them to settle out of court regardless of the merits of the case, which drags up insurance rates and exacerbates the cost of health care, jeopardizing access to critical health care services in Florida,” she said. “The cost of this bill will be paid by Floridians, particularly those living in rural communities. Fewer doctors means longer wait times, worsening medical conditions, increased (emergency department use) and higher overall health care costs.”

Davie Democratic Rep. Mike Gottlieb, a criminal defense lawyer, blasted Dobson’s arguments as misleading and pointed the blame the wrong way. While lawmakers have repeatedly been warned that if they repeal “free kill,” the state will see “a couple thousand more cases,” that isn’t the strong argument those utilizing it seem to think it is.

“A couple thousand people dying at the hands of a doctor?” he said. “That’s really problematic if that’s what we’re talking about.”

Also unconvincing, he said, is alarm over “nuclear verdicts,” which evidence deep problems on the supply side of health care.

“When I hear ‘nuclear verdict,’ I hear gross negligence. The reason a jury is awarding someone $15 million is somebody made a huge mistake, something that was blatantly obvious,” he said. “That’s why a jury says, ‘You need to pay more than anybody else should pay, because you’re breaching the standards of care. Your causation was so high, and you committed a huge harm.’ That’s why we have nuclear verdicts, not because people’s mentality is changing.”

Notably, the $71 million verdict was awarded to a woman left blind, partially paralyzed and with cognitive impairment following a stroke after a nurse at Tampa General Hospital failed to order proper testing and treatment before discharging her.

Gottlieb added that most obstetricians are fleeing Florida not due to insurance issues but because they’re overburdened amid a statewide population boom and because of the “repressive reproduction and maternity care laws” the GOP-dominated Legislature has passed in the past decade — something, he said, a simple Google search can prove.

“It has nothing to do with ‘free kill,’” he said. “They’re taking your eye off the ball.”

Republican Reps. Jon Albert, Danny Alvarez, Jessica Baker, David Borrero, Hillary Cassel, Traci Koster, Patt Maney, Michelle Salzman and Chuck Brannan, the Committee Chair, voted for HB 6003 on Wednesday alongside Gottlieb, López and Rep. Dan Daley.

The sole “no” vote came from Republican Rep. Tom Fabricio, who also voted against the 2025 version of the bill when it came before the Committee on March 20. Fabricio did not speak on the measure then or on Wednesday.

In her closing remarks, Trabulsy said that of all of HB 6003’s opponents who appeared in the Committee meeting, only two had come by her office to speak to her about it, while every supporter of the bill had done so.

“My door is always open, so I’m a little disappointed in that,” she said. “I think it’s because … they’re representing a company or they’re representing the insurance industry, and in their hearts, they know that it’s wrong, and they’ll probably look me in the eye and I would probably know that they’re not selling a good story.”

HB 6003 does not need a sponsor or companion bill in the Senate to pass. If the House passes the bill, the Senate can take it up directly, assign it to appropriate committees — or waive reference — and vote on it, amend it and return it to the House for concurrence or replace the text of a Senate bill with the House language via a strike-all amendment.

Without any Senate action, however, the bill will die.