Bush slams malpractice lawsuits
Speech is president’s first in Ohio in 3 weeks
Saturday, October 23, 2004
Jack Torry
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
TONY DEJAK | ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Bush shakes supporters’ hands in Canton’s Palace Theatre.
CANTON — Returning to Ohio for the first time in almost three weeks, President Bush charged yesterday that "frivolous and junk lawsuits" are driving up the cost of health care and asserted that Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry has opposed efforts to curb financial damages against physicians and hospitals.
Appearing before a jubilant crowd of handpicked supporters at the majestic Palace Theatre, Bush opened the final push of his re-election campaign by linking trial lawyers and expensive medical lawsuits to Kerry and his running mate, Sen. John Edwards, a wealthy trial lawyer before his election to the Senate in 1998.
As Bush strolled about the stage with a microphone in his grasp, he accused "personal-injury trial lawyers" of attempting to convert the American legal system into a "lottery" with medical-malpractice lawsuits. He said physicians, faced with rising medical-malpractice insurance premiums, order unnecessary and costly medical procedures for patients to avoid lawsuits.
"If you think you’re going to get sued, you’re going to practice more medicine than is needed so you can defend yourself in a court of law," Bush said, saying it costs taxpayers $28 billion annually in additional spending for Medicare, Medicaid and veterans’ health benefits.
To make his point, Bush introduced Tom Schwieterman, a physician from Mercer County. One of four guests to join Bush on the stage, Schwieterman said his fourgeneration family practice had to stop delivering babies this year because medical-malpractice premiums soared from $25,000 annually to $80,000 annually in just 48 months.
Schwieterman told the crowd that during the 113-year history of the family practice, none of the physicians had ever been sued for malpractice.
Then Bush said that as a member of the Senate, Kerry voted against "medical liability reform 10 times. . . . He can run, but he cannot hide from that record."
Bush has joined a number of conservatives in urging limits on punitive and noneconomic damages in medical lawsuits. The House has approved a bill that would cap noneconomic damages — or pain and suffering — at $250,000 while making it more difficult for people to win punitive damages, which are intended to punish a physician or health company.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded that medical-liability insurance premiums for all physicians increased an average of 15 percent between 2000 and 2002. By the end of 2002, 28 states had adopted some type of caps on financial damages in medical lawsuits.
Yet the same study concluded that large malpractice awards account for less than 2 percent of health spending, suggesting that even limits on awards would not appreciably reduce the soaring costs of health care in the country.
"Medical-malpractice costs contribute less than 1 percent to the cost of health care," said Brendon Cull, a spokesman for the Democratic campaign in Ohio. "John Kerry and John Edwards have a real plan to get frivolous lawsuits out of the system. It’s clear that (Bush) doesn’t have a health-care plan."
Joined by first lady Laura Bush and their daughters, Barbara and Jenna, Bush clearly reveled in the loud cheers and applause, delivering a few quips that provoked laughter even as he delved into a weighty discussion on medical malpractice, rising health costs and the war on terrorism.
As he introduced his four guests, Bush mentioned that a fifth, Michael Gordon, a smallbusiness owner, had been forced to cancel his appearance at the last moment.
"He’s stuck out there," Bush joked. "Probably behind a barricade chanting, ‘Four more years.’ "
A member of the audience then shouted back, "four more years," prompting Bush to crack, "Oh, Michael, you made it."
At another point, Bush turned to his family seated behind him and said, "I’ve been telling the girls, ‘One of these days we’ll take the family camping trip.’ They envisioned the Grand Canyon, the wilds of Alaska. Girls, this is it — the 2004 campaign."
Bush’s appearance yesterday is the beginning of a final blitz for Ohio’s 20 electoral votesduring the next 10 days. Bush has scheduled rallies Wednesday in Lima and Dayton and Thursday in Youngstown and Cleveland. Edwards campaigns by bus Sunday in Cincinnati, Dayton and Lima, and he gives a speech Monday in Toledo. Vice President Dick Cheney will be in Wilmington on Monday. Kerry also is expected back in Ohio next week.
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