The nation's physicians and hospitals were generally pleased with President Barack Obama's State of the Union Address, in which he said he's open to fixing certain provisions in last year's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, including the much-debated 1099 filing requirement for American businesses.

"President Obama outlined a vision for our nation's future that includes key AMA priorities, such as lowering healthcare costs through medical liability reform, improvements to the new health reform law and investments in biomedical research," Dr. Cecil Wilson, president of the American Medical Association, said in a statement. Wilson also said he is pleased that the president acknowledged that certain improvements should be made to the reform law, such as eliminating the 1099 provision that requires businesses to file a form with the Internal Revenue Service for every vendor with which they have had at least $600 in transactions.

Richard Umbdenstock, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association, told Modern Physician that the AHA has long supported medical liability reform. Now he is eager to see what specific approaches the president has in mind, adding that Obama typically has supported state initiatives and there "is some money in the bill to foster that."