Tort Reform is like cotton candy. It looks so good and seems so substantial. Then you bite into it and realize it’s nothing but air.
For example, the insurance industry claims we need tort reform to eliminate the flood of frivolous malpractice law suits. They claim all of these frivolous law suits are driving up the premiums they must charge doctors for liability insurance and that this in turn is driving up the cost of medical care and driving doctors out of practice.
But are the premiums being charged doctors for liability insurance so high because of frivolous lawsuits or are the insurance companies simply charging very high premiums because they don’t need to worry about losing business to a competitor who charges less? Are insurance companies agreeing behind closed doors to divide markets and fix prices?
But, you say, the insurance companies couldn’t do that. It would violate the federal law against price fixing and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice would be all over them. Think again.
• Federal laws that make it a crime for businesses to conspire to fix prices do not apply to insurance companies.
Competing insurance companies who are in the business of insuring doctors against medical malpractice claims can bypass healthy competition and conspire to fix prices with impunity because the insurance business has always been exempt from federal price fixing laws.
There is reason to believe this is occurring. Did you know that most States only have one or two insurance companies to whom the doctors can turn for liability insurance? Did you know that in States where there is more than one company offering to sell liability insurance to doctors the difference between the premiums the different companies charge for the same insurance policy is typically insignificant? Unlike the competitive auto insurance industry, fifteen minutes won’t save you $500 in purchasing medical liability insurance.
But what about the flood of frivolous law suits? The insurance industry’s claim that they are being “forced” to charge hefty if not downright outrageous premiums because of a flood of frivolous law suits lacks corroboration from any outside institution.
• No insurance company has ever opened its books to outside objective auditors to show that the high prices they charge doctors for medical malpractice liability insurance are really due to ‘frivolous law suits’.
• No medical malpractice insurance company has ever disclosed detailed information on all the cases they have defended or settled for any fiscal year to support the claim that the majority or even a significant portion of those medical malpractice claims were ‘frivolous’.
Tort reform is not the answer to the high cost of medical care in our country because frivolous law suits are not the problem. The problem is just corporate greed.
Like cotton candy, tort reform is not what it seems. Once you bite into it you find that all tort reform really does is help the insurance industry maintain its profit margin and bottom line without doing anyone else a bit of good.
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I acknowledge that tort reform serves the insurance companies' interests, but it also rememdies an unfair system against the medical profession. It acts as a sieve, not a filter. It results in billions of dollars of defensive medicine. It does not reach the majority of patients who have been victims of negligent medical care. See www.MDWhistleblower.blogspot.com under Legal Quality. My father prosecuted physicans. I know the legal arguments in favor the status quo well. I just don't buy them.
ReplyDeleteI agree that at present the vast majority of victims of negligent medical care cannot seek redress for the harm they have suffered in our court system. The reason for that is the cost involved in pursuing those claims and the huge costs involved are ones caused by the defense, not the plaintiffs who, unlike defense, have no interest in making medical malpractice litigation more expensive.
ReplyDeleteAs to the current system being unfair, at least in States such as Maryland and Virginia which have already enacted “tort reform” measures, I confess the only real unfairness I see is unfairness to the injured patient---not the negligent doctor. A specific example of what you are referring to here would help.
I did check out the website that you referenced. The case discussed was a woman who developed gangrene and had to have her right forearm amputated because “(a) physician’s assistant injected … medication improperly into her arm.” Sounds like medical negligence to me regardless of the drug manufacturer’s degree of responsibility.
Your comment was one of the reasons I again returned in my most recent blog to the “defensive medicine” excuse doctors give for ordering unnecessary tests—an excuse I call the “devil made me do it” defense. So see my new blog for a discussion of that issue.
Many of us have always believed that greed is one of the factors that make our healthcare system the most expensive in the world.. Government has a place in keeping businesses…lawyers, drug companies, doctors, insurance companies…from making excessive profits off of people who can least afford it.
ReplyDeleteEven Republicans are starting to get behind the concept that government intervention on behalf of consumers is not only necessary…it is also good.
If we can put arbitrary caps on jury awards, we can put those same caps on the profits that drug companies, hospitals, doctors and insurance companies make.
Tort reform in itself will only save our 2 trillion dollar a year healthcare system about 0.5%
In itself...not a significant amount. But if you take the concept further and start putting caps not only on lawyers, but doctors, hospitals , insurance companies and drug companies...now you are talking real savings.
Government limits to jury awards. Yes.
Government limits to doctors fees. Yes
Government limits to drug companies profits. Yes
Government limits to insurance companies profits. Yes
Now we are all talking the same language