:: Health Care Reform – Another Tort “Reform” Opportunity For The Insurance Lobby
As health care “reform” proposals float in the air like leaves in an autumn breeze, it is interesting to see how “tort reform” finds new forms of expression from even the somewhat left-leaning Huffington Post. See this article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-r…_b_229812.html
They voice concern about limiting patients’ right to sue, but they at the same time state:
We could limit the amount of fees their attorneys get but that won’t pass muster with so many lawyers in Congress. We do need to do something about the spiraling cost of malpractice insurance which is driving doctors away from some specialties and some out of the profession altogether. We can create low cost government backed malpractice insurance (and therein regulate attorney litigation costs), not unlike flood insurance.
I am amazed at the credulity of those that suggest that doctors are fleeing jurisdictions because of malpractice premiums or leaving the practice because of same. Ridiculous. Name one that you know. It’s a ruse.
There is a problem with malpractice premiums but the trial lawyers are not the source. It’s too bad that the trial lawyers cannot articulate the real problems in poor medical care and thereby justify their role in fronting the huge costs of advancing a med mal case even on the best facts. I hope that the current push for “reform” will not relegate even more Americans to accepting flagrant errors in medical care with little or no recourse.
The truth is that most frivolous claims result in no compensation. The vast amount of expentiture is over actual errors. See, Claims, Errors, and Compensation Payments in Medical Malpractice Litigation, David M. Studdert, LL.B., Sc.D., M.P.H., Michelle M. Mello, J.D., Ph.D., M.Phil., Atul A. Gawande, M.D., M.P.H., Tejal K. Gandhi, M.D., M.P.H., Allen Kachalia, M.D., J.D., Catherine Yoon, M.S., Ann Louise Puopolo, B.S.N., R.N., and Troyen A. Brennan, M.D., J.D., M.P.H., New England Joural Of Medicine, Volume 354:2024-2033 May 11, 2006 Number 19.
