|
medpundit |
||
 |
 |
|
Wednesday, May 15, 2002“In 1975, California enacted an absolute limit on the amount a citizen jury (you, your friends, neighbors and co-workers) -- after hearing all the evidence -- can order negligent health-care providers to pay patients they injure or the families of those they kill. Now, 27 years later, California doctors pay 20 percent more for medical malpractice coverage than the national average, according the American Medical Association's Physician Socioeconomic Statistics, 2000-2002.” The California tort reform does not restrict the ability of wronged patients to sue, nor does it inhibit their ability to obtain justice. It only limits the amount that can be rewarded for pain and suffering, not the amount that can be rewarded for economic losses. The pain and suffering was limited to $250,000, not exactly chicken feed. What the reform also did was restrict the contigency fees of the plaintiff’s attorneys, so more money goes to the injured party and less goes to his lawyer. In this respect, it's actually an improvement for the injured party. That one must really stick in the craw of the Trial Lawyer Association. (For a detailed description of California’s tort reform click here.) It simply isn’t true that California doctors pay higher malpractice rates when compared specialty to specialty. In fact, doctors are leaving places like Nevada and moving to California to practice. “According to the Institute of Medicine's 1999 report, up to 98,000 patients die in U.S. hospitals each year as a result of preventable medical errors. Malpractice is America's eighth-leading cause of death, killing more than breast cancer or automobile crashes. Most injured patients and their survivors never learn that they or their loved ones were victims of medical malpractice. Only one out of eight instances of malpractice results in a claim, according to a Harvard study.” The Institute of Medicine’s report on medical errors is by no means a good study, and in fact, has been found to be deeply flawed. It overestimates deaths due to medical errors. The doctors doing the survey could not even agree on what constituted a “deadly medical error.” In some cases they counted adverse reactions to drugs that were the only choice of treatment in a life-threatening situation. As to medical errors being the “eighth leading cause of death,” that is an out and out lie. The National Center for Health Statistics lists Alzheimer’s disease as the eighth leading cause of death in patients of all ages in 2000. It was the same in 1999. Here is the list of leading causes of death in the United States in 2000: 1 Diseases of heart 2 Malignant neoplasms 3 Cerebrovascular diseases 4 Chronic lower respiratory diseases 5 Accidents (unintentional injuries) 6 Diabetes mellitus 7 Influenza and pneumonia. 8 Alzheimer ’s disease 9 Nephritis,nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis 10 Septicemia The number five category of accidents is very broad, and includes motor vehicle accidents and every sort of accidental death imaginable. By no stretch of the imagination could medical errors make up the majority of that category, considering that they include homicides, suicides, and firearm accidents as well as sundry other unintentional injuries that result in death. Then, there’s the claim that most injured people never know they were the victim of malpractice. For malpractice to occur there has to be a noticeable injury. If even the patient isn’t aware of it, it can’t really be malpractice. Only a trial lawyer would see injury where no one else can see it. “The negligence of bad doctors and the bad business decisions of insurance companies are not the fault of patients who are mistreated. Yet it is injured patients who will be punished if insurers and doctors succeed in limiting justice to help solve their self-inflicted troubles.” Of course it isn’t the fault of the patients, but neither does malpractice tort reform aim to restrict an injured pary's right to obtain justice. It only aims to restrict the profits of malpractice attorneys. You can’t deny that there is a culture of attorneys out there who go trolling for dollars in any sort of injury or accident, as this woman’s story attests. Her case is not unique. I often have patients come to my office after an accident. The honest ones say they feel fine, but their “lawyer told them to get checked out.” Medical malpractice is no different. These guys go looking for injuries. They advertise on television, in newspapers, and on the backs of phone books. They can’t be counted on to reign in their own greed, so tort reform is really the only solution. Just remember, it isn’t the patient who’s the target, it’s the greedy lawyers. posted by Sydney on 5/15/2002 10:18:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
|
