With Rick Perry taking the lead in the Republican primary, tort reform is expected to be, again, a major campaign issue. I have long been a critic of efforts to cap damages and I have seen firsthand how these caps often lead to families being unable to secure counsel in fights with big companies. Now, Perry is claiming that his “reforms” have led to 21,000 more doctors coming to Texas. The article below shows how this claim is entirely unsupported.
At the Politics and Eggs Breakfast in Bedford, N.H., on Aug. 17, 2011, Perry claimed huge success in malpractice limits: “I’ll tell you what one of the results was. This last year, 21,000 more physicians practicing medicine in Texas because they know they can do what they love and not be sued. Some 30 counties that didn’t have an emergency room doc have one today. Counties along the Rio Grande, where women were having to travel for miles and miles outside of the county to see an ob-gyn, for prenatal care and now they have that care.”
However, the actual increase was 12,788. Moreover, the biggest drivers appears population growth: “From 2002 to 2010, the population of Texas grew by 20 percent. At the same time, the number of doctors went up 24 percent.”
The bar needs to be more proactive in dealing with the costs of limits on malpractice and other types of recovery. I once helped a student who was seeking an attorney to sue a trucking company in Kansas for a horrific accident where his fiance was killed. No attorney would touch it due to caps on recovery. It would simply be too expensive to litigate as a contingency case. The result is that families are forced to accept a couple hundred thousand dollars for the death of their loved one. It makes such people a relatively cheap cost of doing business.
As we saw in the Virginia Tech case, the university was clearly and grossly negligent. Yet, those families were limited to $100,000 each in a ridiculous cap on damages. Not only did the university avoid the full damages for its negligence, it has used the tragedy to raise a great deal of money. I continue to get calls incessantly on my phone by fundraisers from the university despite asking them to stop calling.
It is time to have a full and accurate debate on this issue, but it is not going to happen with bar groups remaining timid and passive.
Jonathan Turley
Source: Politifact
“I don’t take checks from this guy because he’s been convicted of forging checks.”
“Oh sure, attack the messenger!”
Bravo Mespo! Attack the messenger and avoid the message.
You trial lawyers have acquired such a bad name that you needed to change the name of your national organization from the Association of Trial Lawyers of America to the American Association for Justice.
I have seen “Justice”. He wears sheeps clothing.
I am neither a physician nor a trial lawyer (plaintiff’s bar), Mark. Can you say the same?
Here’s what former DNC Chair, Howard Dean, had to say about trial lawyers and tort reform.
Video: Dean says no tort reform because trial lawyers too intimidating
@noway
That report is bogus. It is a product of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative, free market leaning think tank. This organization has been producing questionable research that advocates the elimination of social welfare programs, public education, and regulation of businesses while promoting Christian values via government programs. If you are going read one report, you have to look at multiple sources. Anything from this group is questionable.
mespo,
You should be ashamed of yourself confusing NoWay with Facts rather than Fictions….Thats what they live for Shanghai…
While some of us search for Shangri-La…
Also NoWay, if you ever what to trouble your little mind with some truth, here’s the Slate Magazine report on the “crisis.”
http://www.slate.com/id/2145400/
No Way:
You forgot the disclaimer to this propaganda:
“Brought to You By Head Spook BIll Casey and Your Corporate Masters at the Manhattan Institute.”
The High Costs of Malpractice Liability
So if Trial Lawyers, Inc.’s suits against doctors are wide-ranging, and often meritless, just how much do they cost? By 2003, medical-malpractice liability costs in the United States had reached an astounding $26 billion annually. That staggering sum represents a 2,000 percent increase over costs in 1975. At 12 percent per year, the growth rate in medical malpractice costs since 1975 is four times the rate of inflation and twice the rate of medical-care inflation.
In jury trials, million-dollar verdicts are now the norm. Fifty-two percent of all awards exceed $1 million while the average award now weighs in at $4.7 million. In crisis states, jury verdicts can be truly astronomical. For example, in 2002 in New York State, where juries delivered five of the top ten malpractice awards, insurers incurred losses of over $1 billion and paid out $747 million in claims. Though such outsize verdicts are often reduced by pretrial agreements and constitute only 4 percent of all med-mal case resolutions, they establish a benchmark for future settlements. Between 1997 and 2003, the average settlement climbed 93 percent, to $1.9 million.
An Insurance Crisis
These legal-defense and settlement costs are driving doctors’ insurance premiums into the stratosphere. Trial Lawyers, Inc.’s carpet-bombing tactics helped drive average premiums up 18 percent in 2003 alone—more than twice the rate of growth of total health-care spending per person. Doctors in plaintiff-friendly states and those in high-risk specialties like obstetrics, orthopedics, surgery, and neurology have borne the brunt of the assault. In plaintiff-friendly Cook County, Illinois, obstetricians paid $230,428 for coverage in 2004, up 67 percent from 2003 and nearly 12 times what they would pay in nearby Minnesota. In St. Clair County, Illinois, where 1,100 defendants were named in more than 400 lawsuits between 2001 and 2003, neurosurgeons last year paid an average of $228,396, five times the going rate in Wisconsin.
Even so, these sky-high premiums have not kept pace with payouts and with the costs of defending the 70 percent of suits that are spurious. In 2003, insurers paid out $1.38 for every premium dollar they took in. Little wonder that many of them are running for the exits. SCPIE Indemnity Company stopped selling medical-liability insurance in every state but California in 2003. American Physicians Assurance pulled out of Nevada early last year even after the state legislature passed reforms. In 2002, MIIX Insurance in New Jersey declined to renew 7,000 policies because it had lost over $200 million in 2000 and 2001. In Maryland, where cowed legislators prefer to tax HMOs to pay for doctors’ insurance rather than take on the plaintiffs’ bar, there are only four medical-liability insurers left, down from 14 in 1995.
Read the entire report
Anon:
No question it’s a boon for lawyers too. The defense firms are the Cadillac of the defense bar who charge from $400 to $800 an hour for the defense. Plaintiff guys aren’t blameless either.
Anything that helps the people…republicans are against.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/25/rick-perry-texas-life-insurance-scheme_n_935666.html
Very well said, mespo.
One question. You concluded with:
“It’s their insurers who take from both sides to bloat profits out of all proportion to actual risk.”
I agree completely, but what about the lawyers who sometimes circle like sharks (I’m thinking of someone near, and not-so-dear to me). I’ve often heard him talk about going for the “deep pockets”, with regard to medical malpractice cases. There’s plenty of greed to go around, it would seem.
Frankly,
“with prejudice” meant he could not refile the lawsuit–ever. The legal definition of “dismissal with prejudice” is: “When a case is dismissed for good reason and the plaintiff is barred from bringing an action on the same claim.”
Recovery of costs was a second issue and that motion was denied.
A well said and accurate summation of the problem, mespo.
Tort reform is profit enhancement for malpractice insurers. I represent scores of victims and a number of physicians as well. Both groups are hurt by malpractice premiums out of whack with reality. I advocate a system that allows the victims relief and permits physicians to practice without the burden of huge malpractice premiums. These are pure profit centers for insurers and have no relationship with the actual number of claims and settlements/verdicts paid.
We need to develop an inexpensive system to evaluate claims and provide truthful assessments on violations of the standard of care by healthcare providers. I have suggested making the sacrosanct peer review process open to judges to permit them to glean the profession’s accurate take on the situation. In the alternative, we could submit cases with names redacted to state boards qualified to opine on the standard of care. We need something that doesn’t require litigants to spend tens of thousands of dollars on experts who will arrive at precisely the conclusion that the payor demands. I also am interested in the English System where the Court appoints and pays a well qualified expert to opine on the matter and communicates that opinion to the jury. I think we could add this “third clock” sort of expert to provide the jury with as much of an unbiased opinion as possible. The system is broken and needs reform. Perry seeks to aid one group at the expense of the public. That group isn’t physicians, of course, who still pay high premiums after decades of so-called “tort reform.” It’s their insurers who take from both sides to bloat profits out of all proportion to actual risk.
OS – I thought “with prejudice” included recovery of costs. Sorry, didn’t mean to minimize your portion of shit, only that I have not heard a solution that is not worse than the problem.
Carol,
Sometimes with the best of intentions we self destruct….which way do you want to go?
Patric, Thas is true of Pa. too (and the medical associations.) I advised Governor Ridge of the court’s calling Dr. Jannetta’s testimony perjurious when he nominated Dr. Jannetta as Pa sec’t of health (Peter J. Jannetta 1995-1996) I received reply that Gov Ridge had “full confidence” in Dr. Jannetta. None of the 50 senators cared either. (“We have little difficulty in concluding that Dr. Jannetta’s testimony at deposition was different than, or inconsistent with, the testimony at trial.” Levy v Jannetta, CCP Allegheny County, GD 81-7689; appeal -J. A370017/92 Levy v Jannetta et al, No. 00150 Pittsburgh, 1992. settled, 1995.)
I wrote local, state licensing boards, no replies. The neurological surgeons association, no reply. They just do not care. Maybe if there was some sanctioning the recidivist doctors would stop. (Public Citizen has estimated 15% of docs cause 85% of the med. mal.)
Incorrect information aside, is attracting doctors who go to someplace because it’s cheaper for them and their insurance company if they do mess up something you really want to do?
Had Rick Perry chosen intellectual clarity in his response, he might have included the fact that Texas’ state medical board consistently ranks in the bottom 1/3 in the area of disciplining its worst practitioners.
As an ugly example, in the last 100 cases of sexual misconduct alone, exactly 15 received license suspensions or revocations.
Consider this statement, by Sidney Wolfe, MD, who has been pushing for physician misbehavior transparency for decades:
“Nationwide, an extremely tiny fraction of doctors ever face disciplinary action, even for outright assault and homicide. And Texas ranks well below the national average. The state needs to start doing a better job of protecting the public.”
Here’s a peak at Texas/physician justice:
http://www.reporternews.com/news/2008/Oct/02/doctor-accepts-plea-bargain-in-sexual-assault/
“Tort Reform” holds no true social redeeming qualities at all, to my way of thinking. And Texas – for all its pride in fast-track executions – is downright lazy when it comes to their lab coat miscreants.
I suspect the Lone Star state may still cling to the notion that if you wear white, you can’t be one of the bad guys.
Add: I have heard the suggestion that the way to reduce frivolous suits is to make the loser pay the legal fees of both. Problem is, as with my case of med mal with a lot of proof including perjury, doctor a major name in that city, told by taxi drivers there, for instance, you cannot win here in Pittsburgh, hospital major employer and we are FOR our doctors. True frivolous is one thing, sounds like OS’s case was defintely not legit. And forget sanctions by legal community. My lawyer for appeal did virtually no work, no depo, interr, etc and I went to fee dispute. They “awarded’ me (what an awful word for it) an additional amount of money (very low 5 figure), but wrote they “found in favor of the attorney”. No they didn’t, but it was more important to protect lawyer and his rep then hew to the truth.