Re: Court invalidates med mal damage award caps


jls wrote:
> "Joshua Heard" <jheard@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:_YLGe.62978$X76.8309@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > http://www.abanet.org/journal/ereport/jy29cap.html
> >
> >
>
> It's a start. Legislatures should consider their supreme laws before they
> write laws which violate the equal protections drafted into their state
> constitution.
>
> Greed drives the cap industry, particularly in view of the fact that only
> 1/2 of 1% of the cost of health care is attributable to medical negligence
> lawsuits. Avaricious doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies are the
> real culprits.

EDITORIAL
Malpractice Mythology-The problem with the president's approach
Only a small number of people are being compensated for malpractice.

Published: January 9, 2005

Tort reform," the Bush administration's answer to the problem of high
medical malpractice costs, makes sense from only one aspect: the
political. The genius of tort reform, which focuses on putting a cap on
the awards from malpractice suits, is that it offends only one
big-money lobbying group: trial lawyers, who are important financial
supporters of the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, it helps or holds
harmless Republican special interests in the insurance, drug and health
care industries. The only problem is that it hurts the hapless patients
who suffer grievous harm at the hands of incompetent doctors.

We hold no brief for the current medical liability system, which does a
poor
job of compensating most victims of medical malpractice. An
authoritative study of thousands of patients in New York State found
that the vast majority who were harmed by medical errors or negligence
never filed suit, whereas the vast majority of those who did file suit
were not actually harmed by negligent doctors. Some studies suggest
that, once a suit is filed, the courts do a reasonably good job of
sorting out who deserves compensation, while other research has found
that juries are swayed more by the severity of a plaintiff's injuries
than by evidence of negligence. But in a medical system that is coming
under increased fire for failing to deliver consistent quality in
hospital care, it is clear that only a small number of people are being
compensated for malpractice.

The problem with the president's approach, which would limit
noneconomic
damages to a PALTRY $250,000, is that it would punish many of those
most
deserving of compensation. If there is a problem with frivolous
lawsuits, that is best addressed by raising the hurdles for filing a
malpractice suit, perhaps by requiring an expert judgment on the merits
of a case before it can proceed through the courts. But surely $250,000
hardly makes up for the physical and emotional damage done to people
who have suffered total paralysis, permanent blindness or severe brain
injury because of medical errors. Instead, Congress ought to consider
requiring guidelines for judges and juries to help determine what
compensation is reasonable in a given circumstance. Similar guidelines
could help ensure that punitive damages are high enough to deter bad
conduct; $250,000 would hardly amount to a wrist slap.

Politicians endorsing tort reform say a crisis of escalating
malpractice
insurance premiums is forcing doctors out of business. The extent to
which this is an actual problem is murky. Insurance companies have
substantially raised premiums for malpractice coverage for doctors in
high-risk specialties like obstetrics and neurosurgery in some states,
leading at least some doctors to curtail their services, retire or
move. The White House laments that patients in some areas are thus
forced to travel long distances to find, for example, obstetrical care.
But when the Government Accountability Office visited five of the
hardest hit states in 2003, it found only scattered problems and was
unable to document wide-scale lack of access to medical care.

Most states that are burdened with high premiums have already set their
own
caps, generally at more reasonable levels than those proposed by the
president. It would seem more useful to consider making it harder for
insurance companies to gain rate increases. The best response, one that
would benefit the public in general, would be to weed out the small
number of negligent doctors responsible for generating most of the
malpractice awards.

None of the tort reform proposals deal with the underlying need to
identify
harmed patients and provide them with fair, prompt compensation.
Experts have suggested a number of approaches, including special health
courts with judges trained to deal with malpractice issues, required
mediation, mandatory reporting of errors by doctors and prompt offers
of compensation. But there is a lot of uncertainty about what would
work best.

Although the administration has been sponsoring some projects to reduce
medical errors or speed the resolution of claims, these have faded
behind the full-court political press to impose "tort reform." Instead
of fixating on an idea that would do little to solve anything but the
health care industry's desire for fewer big court awards, Congress
should push for a wide range of demonstration projects aimed at solving
the malpractice problem by actually cutting down on malpractice.

******* ******* *******
Panel Seeks Better Disciplining of Doctors-"It's a national problem
that
requires a national solution."

There's a need to protect the public from substandard performance by
physicians"
By ROBERT PEAR

Published: January 5, 2005

WASHINGTON, Jan. 4 - Experts retained by the Bush administration said
on
Tuesday that more effective disciplining of incompetent doctors could
significantly alleviate the problem of medical malpractice
litigation.The focus on doctor discipline is noteworthy because Mr.
Bush, in numerous speeches, has sided with doctors against plaintiffs'
lawyers.

Dr. Thompson, president of the Federation of State Medical Boards said,
"State boards are taking disciplinary action because of issues
involving the quality of care. They are trying to identify doctors who
provide marginal or substandard care, before the doctors put more
patients at risk."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/05/politics/05docs.html?ex=1106974800&;...


See:
Gangsters In Medicine
Gangsters In Medicine By Thomas Smith Valley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ... For
a time, these changes actually improved the practice of medicine in the
United ...
http://www.rense.com/general33/gang.htm

HOW TO STOP YOUR DOCTOR KILLING YOU
The person most likely to kill you is your doctor.' ... In this brand
new edition of How To Stop Your Doctor Killing You, you'll discover
many truths about ...
http://www.vernoncoleman.com/htsydky.htm

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