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Special points of interest:
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So It Isn’t a Figment
In January, we reported that Public Citizen was claiming that the medical liability crisis is a figment of our imaginations. Public Citizen should give a call to the Brookings Institution, the esteemed left-of-center think tank.
Just this month, Alice Rivlin, OMB Director under President Clinton and former Vice Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, co-authored a Brookings study on health care that makes some interesting observations on the medical liability crisis, to wit: it’s real and it’s driving insurance premiums sky-high.
“The medical liability insurance system is in upheaval, with rapid increases in insurance premiums and the exit of major insurance carriers from the medical liability market. Between 2000 and 2002, malpractice insurance premiums rose by 15 percent on average for all physicians. High-risk specialties faced even larger premium hikes: 22 percent for obstetricians-gynecologists and 33 percent for internists and general surgeons. A general surgeon in Miami could expect to pay at least $174,000 a year for liability coverage in 2002.” We might add that it is even worse if they work in an emergency room (see below).
What’s more, Public Citizen continues to claim that, “caps on non-economic damages bear no relation to lower malpractice insurance premiums.” Again, they should check out Ms. Rivlin’s report. She draws the same conclusion as other unbiased observers, “…Capping malpractice awards would lower the cost of malpractice insurance…” In addition, she adds that some health care savings would come from reducing defensive medicine.
Read the full report here.
Study Finds Majority of Claims Closed Without Payment
The majority of medical liability claims are closed without a payment, according recent analysis of seven states by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). This is additional evidence that too many of the claims that are filed are without merit.
In Maine, Missouri and Nevada, only about one-third of medical liability claims that were closed resulted in a payout. In Illinois, only 12 percent did. Of course, even those claims with no payout still incur significant legal costs, time and aggravation on the part of doctors and insurance companies. All of this exacerbates the costly practice of defensive medicine.
Click here for a useful summary of the report.
News from the Frontlines
In Connecticut, a recent editorial in the Hartford Courant gives an up close and personal view of the financial squeeze forcing doctors to cut back or abandon their practices altogether. Personal injury lawyers like to cast all doctors as being as wealthy, but as the Courant article makes clear, the reality is very different.
Dr. Edward Volpintesta, for instance, pays $15,000 in liability insurance. So what? That’s nearly a third of his $75,000 a year earnings as “a fairly typical primary care physician in Connecticut.” Dr. Jim Watson, an obstetrician, was forced to stop delivering babies or performing major surgery in order to bring down his premiums from $120,000 a year to $25,000 a year. But he’ll still have to work well into his retirement years because his practice changed carriers and he must carry his insurance for another five years in case anyone brings a claim against him. Or he could simply pay $100,000 up front to his carrier.
Of course, the people who really suffer the most are patients. Connecticut and other states desperately need medical liability reform. As Matthew Katz, the executive director of the Connecticut State Medical Society says, “Somewhere…right now, a 5-year-old with a fever is depending on it.”
Read the full article here.
In Florida, Emergency Physicians and members of the AARP joined in a forum recently to talk about the crisis in emergency care in that state. While the state legislature remains deadlocked on the issue, patients are suffering. Dr. Michael Zappa told of desperately calling dozens of hospitals in his state to find emergency treatment for a patient. After eight hours, he found the right kind of specialist – unfortunately, it was too late for the patient, who died during the ambulance drive to the other hospital. Another tragic victim of the medical liability crisis – and another compelling reason for national legislation to reform medical liability laws.
Read the full article here.
In Tennessee, hopes for medical liability reform that included reasonable limits on non-economic damages have been dashed for this year. According to Republican Senate Leader Mark Norris, who has championed medical liability reform bills for years, the political reality is that the Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association simply holds too much sway in the House for meaningful reforms to pass there.
Read the full article here.
In Texas, where reform is taking hold, the good news continues. A recent editorial in the San Antonio Express-News, “Real world evidence that tort reform works,” states, “So many doctors are seeking licenses to practice in Texas that the board is facing a certification backlog.” The number is up from 2,446 licenses in fiscal year 2001 to 4,026 in 2006.
The article continues, “The medical malpractice debate is normally an economic and legal abstraction. But the experience in Texas provides hard evidence that reasonable reforms can have real world consequences that improve access to health care.”
Read the full text of the editorial here.
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