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
NoWay, by your reasoning we could expect that insurance would have come down as malpractice payouts were decreased (statistically) and by various states caps over the past few years. Insurance companies want everyone to believe that they are actually in some way connected to the fiscal realities….but the profit margins that Insurance companies guarantee themselves make them so far away from any possible damages that your argument looks reasonable but is in fact, not.
Too bad the purpose of our legal system is supposed to be about the pursuit of justice, not predictability for accounting purposes. Caps only do one thing and Woosty nailed it: protect insurance companies and their profits.
Woosty,
Caps provide some level of predictability.
Could you imagine trying to get insurance for your house without an assessed value? Is it worth $200K or $2 Million? I can tell you this; If I have no way to determine the potential payout, I’m going to protect myself and charge a rate that will cover me in the event of a loss.
WASHINGTON — Texas Governor Rick Perry’s ties to Swiss banking giant UBS go beyond his relationship with former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas). Perry’s current chief of staff and top press person for his campaign, Ray Sullivan, spent five years as a lobbyist for UBS in Texas — a tenure that began the same year Gramm made his macabre pitch for Perry to enable Wall Street gambling on the deaths of Texas teachers.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/26/rick-perry-staffer-insurance-scheme_n_938413.html
W=^..^,
I think lawyers are fair game. See the concurrence with mespo’s concise and accurate summation above. There is a huge “justice gap” in this country and it is due in no small part to often outrageous fee structures. That being said, under the current setup, prosecuting a malpractice claim is not cheap. Mespo’s “government expert”/independent medical review suggestion would go a long way to remedy that situation.
That’s really funny coming from somebody whose parents must have chosen the name “NoWay” for their weak minded offspring.
How come everyone is fair game except Lawyers, Insurance Companies and (cause they whine so good….) Doctors? Caps protect Insurance Companies. They undermine the Law. Those who say otherwise are spinning turd blankets.
Apparently you don’t know the relationship between predators in a food chain either. Thanks for the continued entertainment, NoWay.
I call ’em as I see ’em, Buddha.
Are you a corporation? Corporations can just change their name and forget their past.
“It’s predator versus predator”
Oh yeah. There are doctors and corporations out there advertising that they will take on the lawyers.
You lose!
Or you could just be wrong some more. That’s always entertaining.
How about you both learn to read and learn to address people properly, NoWay?
I listed both lobbying expenditures (7th) and combined state and Federal campaign contributions (107th).
Buddha,
Learn to read! Do you know the difference between donations to election campaigns and lobbying? Obviously not.
The $780 million and $725 million to federal and state elections came from Lawyers; not the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (or the American Association for Justice as they now call themselves).
“organizational level” although “lever” is an oddly appropriate malapropism. I started mojito time early today. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/176777-texass-k-street-roots-move-behind-perry
“The prey are . . .”
NoWay,
“The trial lawyers take it a step further. In a number of states they also have great influence (control) over who gets on the bench. Lawyers have contributed over $780 million to federal elections and $725 to state elections over the past decade, more than any other industry. More than 90% of this money goes to Democrats.”
First, state your evidence with specificity because according to Open Secrets, trial lawyers rank 7th among overall lobbyist expenditures (see American Assn. for Justice, formerly Association of Trial Lawyers of America) and rank 107th for combined State and Federal campaign contributions for 2007-2008. Second, your primary complaint seems to be along partisan lines. If you wonder why trial lawyers – those who protect plaintiffs rights – don’t like any GOP candidates, I suggest you take that up with the GOP. If people trained in the law and practicing for the plaintiff’s bar are not behind the GOP at an organizational lever, perhaps there is a reason for that.
“I’m not stupid. financially succesfully lawyers go after the people with deep pockets. Those are corporations and physicians. Does anybody think lawyers get rich because they win cases against poor people? I understand why lawyers don’t like corporations and physicians. It’s the same reason the lion doesn’t like the zebra. It’s all about the food chain.”
First, that’s a debatable statement. Second, you dismiss the facts that deep pockets or not, legal culpability must be found to get a verdict favorable to the plaintiff, i.e. even wealthy people and corporations can be tortfeasors and criminals. However, nobody “gets paid” without a verdict after due process. Thirdly, you misunderstand the food chain analogy you applied. The proper analogy would be lawyers are lions to the hyenas of the wealthy and the corporate tortfeasor and/or criminal. It’s predator versus predator, not predator versus prey. They prey are the victims of torts and crimes.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/perrymentum-poll-shows-texas-gov-leading-in-south-carolina.php?ref=fpb
OS,
The trial lawyers take it a step further. In a number of states they also have great influence (control) over who gets on the bench. Lawyers have contributed over $780 million to federal elections and $725 to state elections over the past decade, more than any other industry. More than 90% of this money goes to Democrats.
I’m not stupid. financially succesfully lawyers go after the people with deep pockets. Those are corporations and physicians. Does anybody think lawyers get rich because they win cases against poor people? I understand why lawyers don’t like corporations and physicians. It’s the same reason the lion doesn’t like the zebra. It’s all about the food chain.
Dr. Dean is entitled to his opinion. He and his wife are both physicians, not lawyers. I have no idea what his actual knowledge is of the power of the ABA versus the AMA and AOA. Both the lawyer and medical organizations have powerful, well funded lobbies. My experience with state legislatures is that if there is controversy, they tend to shy away and do nothing. Remember, we are talking about getting legislation through State lawmakers, not Federal.