Tort Reform

Republicans have a different sense of what "reform" means. They use the word in legislation to suggest they are correcting an injustice when what they are really doing is creating one.

And in the mean time you'll be sitting on the sidelines moaning about the dearth of doctors and rising healthcare costs and crying out "Why won't somebody doooo something???"

Fishin'-insurance company profits are at record highs. But, this kind of "reform" puts the blame solely at the feet of the attorneys who represent the victims of medical malpractice.

If you were the victim of poor doctoring, or inadequate product safety measures, you would hire a lawyer in an effort to make you whole. Why blame them? This entire process stinks and the lawyers are no more at fault than the doctors or the insurance companies. Less so, if anything.

Why would Republicans want to do anything about the tort system? Isn't this the kind of thing that the free market is supposed to handle more efficiently than the government?

Eliminating artifical insurance rate caps, artifical caps on medical costs and limitations on procedures would be a preferred way of attacking the problem but that isn't likely to happen.

Insurance rates (premiums) aren't all set by the free market. The states often regulate what the insurance companies can charge and what items they must cover in their policies.

But a new study by the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, has reached a very different conclusion about the effect of rising malpractice premiums on consumers. Investigators who studied nine states found instances of localized but not widespread problems of access to health care mostly in "scattered, often rural, areas" that have long-standing problems attracting doctors.

And many of those highly publicized accounts of doctors who have retired or moved are, according to the GAO, either "not substantiated," temporary or involved only a few physicians.

In Pennsylvania and West Virginia, for example, two of 19 states designated by the AMA as being in a "full-blown liability crisis," the number of doctors per capita has actually increased in the past six years, according to the GAO.

doctors and hospitals was one of the "prime causes" of rising health-care costs. Bush's words suggest a correlation between health-care costs and the premiums physicians and hospitals pay to protect themselves in lawsuits.

Yet between 1988 and 1998, U.S. health-care costs increased 74.4 percent while malpractice premiums increased 5.7 percent. The total premiums paid in 2000 added up to 0.56 of the nation's total health-care bill.

Bush asked Congress to "pass medical-liability reform" that would limit malpractice awards. The House passed it. Senate Democrats thwarted the bill this week. Bush wants Americans to believe that if insurance companies have to pay smaller damages to injured patients, physicians will have lower premiums and health-care costs could actually be held down.

Wrong again.

New information in a national database that collects reports of every judgment and settlement paid in malpractice demonstrates just the opposite. An analysis of that data by a consumer-advocacy group reveals malpractice payouts decreased by 8.2 percent between 2001 and 2002. Meanwhile, doctors" premiums didn't go down.

Damage awards greater than $1 million decreased more than 10 percent between those years. Doctors" premiums weren't affected.

The Frist family fortune was built on HCA, and Senate financial disclosures reveal that Senator Frist and his immediate family hold at least $25 million in HCA stock, according to a report in USA Today.

"While HCA hospitals and doctors would benefit were Congress to limit malpractice liability, its gains pale in comparison to those of HCI. The insurer's risk would plummet while profits soared if a medical malpractice cap to limit the company's losses were imposed nationwide," said FTCR's letter, below. "HCI, HCA and your entire family, stand to profit directly from the passage of malpractice caps legislation."

Senator Frist brought Nevada Senator Ensign's S. 11 to the Senate floor today, circumventing customary public hearings and debate. The bill is modeled after H.R. 5, malpractice cap legislation which passed the House of Representatives in March and would limit non-economic damages for victims of medical malpractice to $250,000.

Well, that's true for some types of insurance (e.g. auto insurance), but less so for medical malpractice insurance. In fact, I've never heard of an insurance company complaining that it could not raise its med-mal premiums because of a state-imposed rate ceiling.

In a startling admission, the American Insurance Association (AIA), a major insurance industry trade group, says lawmakers who enact "tort reform" should not expect insurance rates to drop….

Said CJ&D Executive Director Joanne Doroshow, "We would like to thank the insurance industry for finally admitting what is already obvious: that they have not cut, and have no plans to cut, insurance premiums for doctors, hospitals or other businesses as a consequence of 'tort reform' -- restrictions on consumers' rights to sue wrongdoers in court.

As has been pointed out, all Republican "reforms" are ways to get more money into the pockets of special interests.

Some facts

Quote:

But a new study by the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, has reached a very different conclusion about the effect of rising malpractice premiums on consumers. Investigators who studied nine states found instances of localized but not widespread problems of access to health care mostly in "scattered, often rural, areas" that have long-standing problems attracting doctors.

And many of those highly publicized accounts of doctors who have retired or moved are, according to the GAO, either "not substantiated," temporary or involved only a few physicians.

In Pennsylvania and West Virginia, for example, two of 19 states designated by the AMA as being in a "full-blown liability crisis," the number of doctors per capita has actually increased in the past six years, according to the GAO.

doctors and hospitals was one of the "prime causes" of rising health-care costs. Bush's words suggest a correlation between health-care costs and the premiums physicians and hospitals pay to protect themselves in lawsuits.

Yet between 1988 and 1998, U.S. health-care costs increased 74.4 percent while malpractice premiums increased 5.7 percent. The total premiums paid in 2000 added up to 0.56 of the nation's total health-care bill.

As has been pointed out, all Republican "reforms" are ways to get more money into the pockets of special interests.

I guess that'll be your first then.

Well, I'm not so sure. That doesn't look like a "cap" or a "ceiling" on insurance rates, but rather an insurance commissioner rejecting a request to raise rates. A fine distinction, I'll admit, but a real one nonetheless.

Furthermore, I can't quite figure out, from reading the linked story, if the Texas insurance commissioner was acting pursuant to the state's own version of tort reform -- did Texas tie damage caps to insurance rate caps (as was done, I believe, in Florida)? If that's the case, then it's somewhat incongruous to claim that artificial rate caps are contributing to the "med mal crisis," since they would have been instituted as part of the solution.

(As an aside, fishin': posting long URL's can stretch some computer screens, making it difficult to read not only your post but every post in a thread. I strongly urge you to use the {url=address}TEXT{/url} feature to truncate those long web addresses -- just replace the {}s with []s)