Here's a retort to those who keep pushing tort-reform as the answer to reducing healthcare costs. The truth is the G.O.P. simply wants to keep their healthcare corporate donors from being held accountable for medical negligence. Here's a reply...
The truth is tort reform at the state and national level is very bi-partisan, in which Republicans are largely in favor and Democrats are largely opposed to it. Large insurance and healthcare companies contribute to the Republican interests and trial lawyer associations contribute to the Democrat interests. Large settlements and verdicts in personal injury cases can be seen as a transfer of wealth from large companies (Republican base) to victims and their lawyers (Democratic base). Tort reform proposals have mostly come from the Republican side of the aisle in Congress in order to curb this transfer of wealth. This is a good starting point and I would humbly suggest…a given!
For instance, many tort reform proponents will see a high-profile case, like McDonald’s Spilt Hot Coffee case versus Stella (Liebeck VS McDonald's Restaurants), who is the poster child for the Republicans, and the conservative right-wing, as an example of why tort reform is needed. They have managed to instill that case in EVERY Americans brain stem. Everyone is familiar with it! Every time I get into a discussion about tort reform it is thrown in my face, which is why I have memorized the case. These so-called “outrageous awards” are almost never let to stand as originally reported by the media and they are routinely struck down on appeal or before appeal. Punitive damages are by their very nature rare, constituting less than 4-percent of all personal injury verdicts, and in fact, happened in the now infamous MacDonald’s/Stella lawsuit, but that is never mentioned. If you want the "facts" of the case, you might change your mind. Go to...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restaurants
I keep hearing the myth that the number of tort cases is skyrocketing out of control. However, according to the Office of the U. S. Courts tort cases decreased 28-percent between 2002 - 2003. Between 1992 and 2001 the number of civil cases filed in state court dropped by 47-percent. Another great myth is that citizens are bringing forth too many frivolous lawsuits against companies, driving up prices for all of us. Actually, the reverse is true! According to a recent survey, 69 out of 100 frivolous lawsuits, sanctioned as such, were brought by U. S. businesses and their attorneys against other companies. What the hell, we have attorneys on staff; let’s give them something to do. Why are corporations allowed to sue each other, but somehow, individuals are seen as the problem.
I don’t want to ramble too far afield, so let’s focus on healthcare.
Since 1986 more than half of the 50 states have enacted some kind of tort reform. For example, 34 states have legal limits on punitive damages, and 23 states have capped “non-economic” damages. By now we should be able to measure the real impact of tort reform. When coupled with the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, pushed through by Republicans, which stipulates that the law-suit must be for at least $5 million bucks and 2/3’s of the plaintiffs must come from the State the suit is filed in (clearly constructed to crush class-action lawsuits by individuals), we should be seeing some real cost reductions in healthcare in these states.
Evidently, however, the passage of tort reform laws has done nothing to reduce overall healthcare costs. Healthcare costs and patient insurance premiums continue to increase at the same rate as before, if not faster. And the promised cost reductions from less “defensive medicine”, never materialized.
Frankly, I keep hearing the same mantra, tort reform, cut taxes and ignore the deficit, and yet I really don’t see things getting better in any of the Republican states that HAVE enacted tort reforms OR tax cuts. What’s up? Who is REALLY benefiting from these enactments? Take a guess! Yup, the G.O.P loves covering the collective bums of corporations. Tort reform means keeping corporations from being held accountable for screw-ups!
According to the highly esteemed Institute of Medicine, medication errors ALONE, involving prescription drugs, account for 1.5 million injuries and deaths every YEAR (that’s over 4000 people a DAY). Of this number, 400,000 cases of medical errors are preventable. Of this number 44,000-98,000 die every year due to prescription medication error. And yet, a landmark study published by the Harvard School of Public Health concluded that MOST people who have grounds to file a malpractice claim for medical negligence, do NOT! A New York Times article posited that the number of people who might actually have legitimate malpractice claims is one-in-hundred, and only 2% of THESE people ever file a claim.
Imagine, an average 75,000 people DIE of prescription drug error, alone. We are not even discussing all other fields of medicine. And let’s not even discuss why American hospitals have an epidemic of the old superbug MRSA and why Denmark has managed to keep it under control for 30 years. The truth is, the G.O.P simply does NOT want to hold the hospitals accountable for the deaths, after all, we DO want to keep Republican ex-Senator (Dr.) Frist and his family’s Hospital Corporation of America free of accountability when their patients die because of their medical negligence, right? It was probably the patient’s fault for getting sick in the first place…
Frankly, healthcare corporations should be glee-filled knowing that only 2% are going to the lawyers. Why only 2%? Because most people “like” their doctors and cut them slack. That’s not my assumption, that’s a known fact, which is why some insurance companies “time” how many minutes a physician spends with the patient, when quoting doctors on malpractice insurance. They know that the more minutes spent equals better “bonding” with the patient and that the “timely” doctors will probably only average ONE to TWO malpractice lawsuits in the whole history of the physician’s practice.
At the end of the day, we are told that if we limit awards through tort reform, medical care costs and the cost of medical liability insurance should drop by up to 70%, and the overall healthcare costs will drop around 40%.” If it is so simple, than EVERY Republican state that has enacted these tort reforms (caps and limits on punitive damages) should begin seeing the numbers being thrown around.
However, in the 23 Republican states that have “capped” damages in their new reform tort laws, costs continue to rise. Frankly, the Congressional Budget Office report on tort reform, agrees with only one point, while it would lower doctors malpractice insurance premiums by as much as 30% (not 70%...of course THEY want tort reform!)), it would only reduce healthcare premiums by a measly half-percent (not 40%). Come on, does anyone REALLY believe that if a doctor’s practice suddenly had their malpractice insurance premiums drop 30%, they would begin charging less for the services then the doctor across the street. Come on, get real! They would merely pocket the difference!
So much for tort-reform lowering the cost of healthcare.
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