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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MSI who wrote (252350)	5/1/2002 10:14:43 PM
From: DMaA	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Sorry, bad joke. Dick Morris is an equal-opportunity whore.

To: MSI who wrote (252350)	5/1/2002 10:18:19 PM
From: DMaA	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Coincidentlly, WSJ had an editorial on just that subject today: REVIEW & OUTLOOK Lawyers vs. Patients The political pros keep telling us that "tort reform" is an abstraction no one votes on. Well, tell that to the University of Nevada Medical School, which may be forced to close its doors for lack of medical malpractice insurance. Or explain it to the hundreds of Texas doctors who staged a one-day strike last month to protest insurance rate increases of 50% and more. Or perhaps someone will take that message to Mississippi, which is expected to lose 400 doctors this year, or to Oregon's medical association, which has told doctors to brace for "breathtaking" premium rises. What these and many other states all have in common is a runaway tort system and skyrocketing jury awards. This is driving medical insurance costs out of sight, causing doctors to retire early or leave the states and threatening medical care. Some abstraction. The proximate cause for this turmoil is the December decision by the St. Paul Companies to get out of the malpractice business after years of growing losses. Last year the nation's second-largest malpractice insurer had underwriting losses of $940 million. A St. Paul executive tells us the losses were "driven mainly by a steadily deteriorating tort environment, with no real reform in sight." St. Paul insures 42,000 doctors and thousands of hospitals and clinics nationwide. The consequences are being felt by patients all around the U.S. Last year Bolivar County in western Mississippi had six doctors providing obstetrical care; today it has three. Obstetrics insurance for a doctor in Bolivar County jumped from $28,000 to $105,000, with a $25,000 deductible. In neighboring Sunflower County, all four doctors who delivered babies have quit private practice. In the northern half of the state last year there were nine practicing neurosurgeons; now there are three on emergency call. The president of the Mississippi Medical Association tells us that trial lawyers have sent jury awards into the stratosphere. In the first three months of this year alone, juries in Mississippi awarded more than $27 million. There used to be 14 companies underwriting liability in Mississippi; now there's one willing to write new policies. Texas used to have 17 carriers; now it has four. The average U.S. medical malpractice award has more than doubled in recent years, to $1 million in 2000 from $474,000 in 1996, according to a recent study by Jury Verdict Research. And the payoffs are even higher in such tort-friendly states as Mississippi, known to lawyers as the home of "jackpot justice." Juries in that state recently awarded $3.5 million for problems related to a foot amputation, $5 million against a surgeon who lost a patient to pneumonia and $12 million for a birth-related brain injury. In South Texas, one jury awarded $43 million to a woman who claimed a diabetes drug damaged her liver, while another gave $15 million to three women who received faulty hip implants. The plaintiffs bar would have us believe that there's no evidence that tort reform would lower insurance rates, even as they fight reform to their last breath. They blame the economy and rising reinsurance rates for St. Paul's troubles, which sounds plausible until you notice that the states with the worst problems are the same ones with no significant tort reform. Their last refuge is to insist that reformers want to deny patients "their day in court," when what's really in jeopardy is their access to a doctor. The solution is not exactly brain surgery. In 1975 California passed a malpractice reform that caps pain and suffering awards at $250,000 per defendant and sets fees for attorneys. The reform has held down liability costs for doctors and hospitals while speeding settlements and fairly compensating patients who have been genuinely harmed. Many of the states now experiencing doctor flight want to implement similar reforms, but the trial lawyers stand in the way. They'll continue to hold sway until someone starts making the case that the people they are really hurting aren't doctors or insurance companies, but patients. Updated May 1, 2002